Strasbourg, 03/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - In a joint statement on the recent sentencing of Russian journalist German Galkin to a year in a labour camp for defaming regional authority representatives of the town of Cheliabinsk, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, and the OSCE representative for press freedom, Freimut Duve, have expressed their concern at the severity of this sentence, "unprecedented since 1991", and which "may have a negative effect on the freedom of expression and information and media liberty in the Russian Federation". Mr Schwimmer and Mr Duve say that even more worrying is the fact that this sentencing comes just a few months before the Parliamentary elections of December, and the Presidential elections to be held early in 2004. They call upon the Russian authorities to look again at Mr Galkin's case, and to bring all provisions on defamation contained within the Russian penal code into line with the European Convention on Human Rights and the fundamental principle of proportionality in sentencing.