A Finnish businessman has restarted a Web site used by Chechen resistant and will begin raising funds for the site he said provides an alternative to Moscow's version of the war in Chechnya.
"There is an information war going on right next to the regular war, and the Russians want to monopolise the flow of news," Mikael Storsjo, who runs the servers on which the Web site is based, said on Thursday.
"I don't think they have the right to do that, I think the Chechens have the right to make their voice heard."
Moscow had no immediate comment on the site, www.kavkazcenter.com, but Storsjo's Web site has been condemned in the past by Russian officials who called it a mouthpiece for Chechen rebels.
The site, containing news and opinion pieces, has been used by Chechen resistant to issue statements on the decade-old conflict against Russian forces, including warlord Shamil Basayev's statement in September 2004 claiming responsibility for the Beslan school siege, where more than 320 people died.
It was removed from a server in Lithuania afterwards, due to diplomatic pressure from Moscow, and when Storsjo first hosted Kavkazcenter in October he closed it after a week, saying Finnish authorities had complained.
Storsjo said he was now providing a home for Chechen Web masters on computers in Sweden and Lithuania and would increase the capacity with a server in Finland, but that he expected to be able to maintain the service this time.
"I know this will be subjected to tough scrutiny from the authorities, so I'm demanding that everything that happens is completely legal and on the tables. As long as it's legal the authorities can't do anything," he said.
He said he was planning to help raise funds for the site beginning next week.
"We will form an association to support the information supply from Caucasus," Storsjo told Reuters, adding that members would contribute by joining and that he would transfer cash to the operators via a Finnish bank account.
Reuters
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