The authors also attacked John’s book for reporting the rapes of teenage girls inside the school. “When we first got there all everyone was talking about were the rapes,” Ferdigalov said. “[Everyone was] telling us about how the terrorists brutalized these girls.” “Then somewhere along the line the story from the media changed,” Giduck said. He points out that sometimes the political needs of both sides coincide. “The terrorists and the liberal western press don’t want the world to hear that they are rapists. But also the Russian government recognizes that it appears incapable of protecting its citizens when people think that they stood outside while girls were being brutalized.”

Russian speakers Igor Livits, Lisa Tongren and Lance Alred confirmed that a year ago a spetsnaz colonel visiting John said: “The official position of my government now is that no rapes occurred.”

Stalcup and Craze cited journalist C.J. Chivers who wrote an article about Beslan for Esquire in 2006, and who also insisted that no rapes occurred. Giduck said:

Chivers suffers from the same problem as the rest of us. He wasn’t inside the school either. So just like me, he is left to report what others tell him. In their article Chivers challenges me to give the name of one girl who was raped at Beslan. Two hundred thousand females are raped in America every year, but I bet he couldn’t give the name of a single one of those either. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to them.
If there was systematic rape at Beslan, then why have none of the survivors or victims' advocacy groups in Beslan ever revealed or made claims to this effect? Note that both Mothers of Beslan and Voices of Beslan, two such groups, have made quite aggressive criticisms of Vladimir Putin and the Russian security forces' response, so if a coverup occurred it doesn't appear to have been very effective in stifling criticism of the Russian government.