FSB forbids Danish photographer who cooperated with Estemirova to enter Russia

Photographer Mari Bastashevski, a citizen of Denmark, who is covering kidnappings in the Caucasus, was forbidden to come to Russia. According to the spokesman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), she is on the list of persons, whose entrance to Russia is forbidden under the order of the FSB.

Ms Bastashevski worked in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan; she cooperated with Natalia Estemirova, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", who was killed last summer. On June 23, she addressed Russia's embassy in Copenhagen for a journalist's visa. Three days later, she was told that "the issue is still considered in Moscow." Further Mari's attempts to find out the fate of his application at the embassy and the MFA were fruitless.

When asked to clear out the matter, Alexander Yuzhanin, senior adviser of the MFA, explained that Mari is on the list of persons prohibited to enter Russia; the list is compiled by the PR Centre of the FSB, the Radio Liberty reports.

Mari Bastashevski is sure that the ban has to do with her work. During her last business trip to the Caucasus in January, she was detained first in Dagestan, and then in the Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. All the content of her computer was studied.

More than two years, after she had read reports in the Internet of the "Memorial" about kidnappings in the North-Caucasian republics, Mari launched her photo project "Article 126 (Kidnappings in the Caucasus)". She began visiting Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, and meeting relatives of missing persons. According to her story, she photographed emptiness, trying to find in empty rooms, untouched beds and drawn curtains any prints of the people who had once lived there. Natalia Estemirova was her main helper.