Summary: This week we are running a film that first aired on Al Jazeera English six months ago, on another one of Al Jazeera English programmes, Witness. It is the story of two Russian bloggers, Sergei Mukhamedov and Irina Gundareva, who use their blogs to expose corruption and challenge the established order in the different areas in which they live. Mukhamedov is based in Moscow and says he set up his LiveJournal blog to skirt the restrictions on freedom of expression put in place by President Vladimir Putin. Usually one step ahead on a story than mainstream journalists, his blog has been credited with raising issues that matter to ordinary Russian citizens. Irina Gundareva is an investigative journalist based in Siberia and when editors at her newspaper refuse to run her pieces on corruption and injustice, she takes to her blog to get her story out there.
