The Russian journalist Grigory Pasko, finally released from prison has been refused a passport allowing foreign travel by Russia legal authorities at an appeal hearing yesterday. Mr Pasko has said he will take his fight to the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. He was imprisoned by the Russian authorities as a way of silencing his reports on the state of Russian environmental law enforcement and the continuing bloodbath in Chechnya. The denial of foreign passports to workers in "sensitive" industries and political dissidents was common in the Soviet Union. It seems old habits die hard.