Today an ITAR-TASS reporter was detained in Chita for taking a photograph of the pretrial detention facility Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev are said to have been moved to.

Photo-journalist Eugeny Epachintsev was asked to go to the facility by his editorial office; and all he wanted to do was to take a picture of the plaque carrying the address of the building and, if possible, another of the lawyers entering it. He was spotted taking photographs, however, by two officers from the Penitentiary Department who then ordered him to follow them inside into the holding area. He was kept there, according to ITAR-TASS, for about an hour while being cross-examined about the aims of his work, and he was then strongly recommended to destroy the photos he’d taken. Epachintsev says that he did what he was told, though he describes the whole affair as a violation of journalistic rights. He was operating in an ordinary city street and was not trespassing on government property.

(Ekho Moskvy, 26.12.2006)