Radio Liberty journalist Yuri Bagrov has been detained in <NOBR>Beslan</NOBR>, North Ossetian Interior Ministry spokesman Ismel Shaov told Interfax.
The journalist was detained for not having a press accreditation card.
He has applied for one, but the authorities refused to issue a local card explaining that Bagrov did not have the accreditation from the Russian Foreign Ministry that is needed for those working for foreign media, RIA Novosti explains.
Before the Beslan commemoration ceremonies the authorities in North Ossetia said that all journalists working there on Sept. 1-3, had to acquire accreditation. A local interior ministry spokesman stressed that it was possible for all journalists to get accredited and that those that did not would be detained.
Meanwhile, Yuri Bagrov stripped of his passport approximately a year ago, could not receive official accreditation, although his professional duties demanded that he visit the scene of last year’s siege.
Bagrov, who used to work in the Caucuses region, including Chechnya, literally lost his ability to work in August 2004, when officials deprived him of his Russian citizenship, claiming that he had to apply for citizenship in the former Soviet republic of Georgia from where he moved to North Ossetia in 1992.
According to Russian law, however, all citizens of the USSR that were on the territory of Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed, were automatically given citizenship of the Russian Federation.
Yuri Bagrov believes he has been persecuted for a number of controversial articles about Chechnya and Ingushetia.
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