Grigori M. Pasko

Grigori M. Pasko worked as a military journalist for the Russian Pacific floats. After a Japanese television station broadcast his film »Highest Danger Zones«, which showed how a tanker belonging to the Russian navy disposed of radioactive waste in the Japanese Sea, Pasko was accused of high treason and spying and later convicted.

In 2006, his book »Die rote Zone« (t: The red zone) appeared in Germany, containing three autobiographical cycles of diaries that Pasko wrote while being imprisoned. »The Red Zone« records his attempt at keeping his personal integrity in the Russian prisons and deals with the structures of power in the Russian society ruled by Yeltsin and Putin.

»Reporters Without Borders« awarded Pasko (who did not find a publisher for his book in Russia) the Human Rights Prize in 2002. Pasko is the editor of the Russian newspaper »Environment and Law«, he has taught Human Rights and Conflict Resolution at the Woodrow Wilson Institute and is a member of the Russian P.E.N.

© international literature festival berlin

Die rote Zone. Ein Gefängnistagebuch
Wallstein
Göttingen, 2006
[Ü: Hannelore Umbreit]