Historians Protest Russia's Move Against 'Unfavorable' Opinions
The American Historical Association has written to Russia's president, Dmitri Medvedev, to protest his government's recent creation of the Commission to Counteract Attempts at Falsifying History to Damage the Interests of Russia. The government-appointed commission will be responding to "unfavorable" work about Russia, and the historians' letter objects to this role for a government agency. "The critical issue here is who decides what is favorable or unfavorable. We do not think such a judgment should be in the hands of government appointed officers, but rather should be left to free and open debate among historians," the letter says. "Any limitation on freedom of research or expression, however well intentioned, violates a fundamental principle of scholarship: that the research must be able to investigate any aspect of the past and to report without fear what the evidence reveals."
