Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, held a press conference today to announce that the Russian government’s efforts to defend freedom of the press fell far short of their commitments. His report, which can be downloaded here, was delivered to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, detailing a long list of cases of harassment, intimidation, violence, and monopolization of the news media by the ruling party. The case of Oleg Orlov was of primary concern to Haraszti. He said: “Unfortunately, the OSCE commitment to sustain a diversity of news sources was violated during the campaign for the State Duma. Television coverage was monopolized by the ruling party. … The monitoring by the Central Electoral Commission and the NGO Russian Union of Journalists showed a clear bias in favour of the ruling party candidates on the main television channels. Combined coverage of the President, Government and the ruling party approximated 80% of the total political time on the nation-wide channels. … The President’s party chose to ignore the TV debates, and was instead given extra time. While this was done in conformity with the electoral law, the TV debates for the rest of the political parties were downgraded and broadcast in the early morning and late night. This was a breach of the electoral law.” See an excerpt from the report after the jump.