Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

attacks on the press in 2009europe and central asia: russiaHakikat and a chief editor of the political monthly Sogratl, both of which servedDagestan’s Avar ethnic group. In his Hakikat columns, Akhmedilov had sharplycriticized federal and local officials for suppressing religious and political dissentunder the guise of an “anti-extremism” campaign, a colleague told CPJ. Neighborshad seen a Lada sedan with tinted windows and no license plates parkedin Akhmedilov’s neighborhood at least two days before the killing, the colleaguesaid. No arrests or progress had been reported by late year.CPJ was investigating two other deaths to determine whether they werework-related. Shafig Amrakhov, editor of the regional news agency RIA 51, diedin a Murmansk hospital on January 5, six days after suffering head wounds froma gun firing rubber bullets. Amrakhov, who was conscious immediately after theattack, told relatives that an unknown man was waiting for him by the elevatorof his Murmansk apartment, fired several times, and ran out. The case wasunsolved in late year. Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor-in-chief of the Rostov-on-Don newspaper Korruptsiya i Prestupnost, died June 29 from injuries sustainedin an attack two months earlier, according to press reports. The editor was foundunconscious in the entrance of his apartment building on the morning of April30. Korruptsiya i Prestupnost regularly published articles on alleged Rostov governmentcorruption. That case was also unsolved in late year.In December, a court in the southern republic of Ingushetia convicted a policeofficer of negligent homicide in the 2008 killing of online publisher MagomedYevloyev. The victim’s family called the verdict a miscarriage of justice andasserted that the officer, who was sentenced to two years in a low-security prison,had purposely shot Yevloyev while the journalist was in custody.Among the regional journalists beaten during the year, one case stood outfor police indifference and another for its pure brutality. Yuri Grachev, editorin-chiefof the pro-opposition weekly Solnechnogorsky Forum, was attacked andleft unconscious and bleeding in the entrance of his apartment building in thetown of Solnechnogorsk on February 3. Moscow Region police spokesmanYevgeny Gildeyev told the business daily Kommersant that the 72-year-old journalist“might have slipped and fallen.” The paper had been covering a sensitivemunicipal election campaign at the time of the attack.In the southern city of Saratov, two assailants attacked Vadim Rogozhin,then managing director of the independent media holding company Vzglyad, ashe emerged from an elevator in his apartment building on March 5. The attackersstruck him repeatedly on the head with heavy objects, leaving him with a fracturedskull and multiple lacerations that required three months of hospitalization.Rogozhin had at one time covered regional government corruption for thenewspaper Saratovsky Vzglyad. In August, police identified a local businessmanas a suspect in the Rogozhin attack and several others. In September, Rogozhinresigned from the managing director’s position to start an online newspaper.CPJ documented 11 cases of harassment, intimidation, and politicized prosecutionduring the year. The episodes included threats—as in the case of AlekseiVenediktov, prominent editor-in-chief of the independent radio station EkhoMoskvy, who found an ax stuck in a log by his door on February 5. Some involvedlegal harassment—as in the case of the Makhachkala-based independent weeklyChernovik, sued in June by Russia’s state media regulator on “extremism” chargesafter the paper quoted a Dagestani rebel leader. And some involved obstruction—as in the case of the independent broadcaster REN-TV, whose three-membercrew was threatened and forced to abandon an assignment on corruption in thesouthern republic of Ingushetia in October.In September, after CPJ’s advocacy, authorities in Abakan, capital of Khakassiain southern Siberia, dropped defamation charges against online editor MikhailAfanasyev. The editor had questioned the state’s response to an explosion in Augustat Russia’s biggest power plant. Afanasyev had faced up to three years inprison.Advocacy by CPJ also led to some notable changes in the political and lawenforcement climate. During a visit to Moscow in July, U.S. President BarackObama addressed the issue of impunity in an interview with Novaya Gazeta.“Americans and Russians,” he said, “have a common interest in the developmentof the rule of law, the strengthening of democracy, and the protection of humanrights.” Shortly after Obama’s summit with Medvedev, Russian authoritiesagreed to reopen the dormant probe into the 2004 murder of Forbes RussiaEditor Paul Klebnikov, an American, and work in cooperation with the U.S.Department of Justice.In one of the most disappointing investigations, the unsolved 2006 murderof Novaya Gazeta correspondent Anna Politkovskaya, the Supreme Court issuedtwo rulings that offered some new hope. The court overturned the February acquittalsof three defendants and ordered prosecutors to reinvestigate the murdercase. The defendants—Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former police officer, andbrothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov—had been acquitted of secondaryroles in the killing. They could be prosecuted again as part of the new probe. InvestigativeCommittee officials told CPJ that they were also seeking the suspectedgunman, Rustam Makhmudov, a third brother, as part of the new investigation.Rustam Makhmudov was believed to have fled abroad.On September 17, two days after the release of Anatomy of Injustice, theEuropean Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the murders of journalistsand human rights advocates in Russia, and called on Moscow to “swiftly,thoroughly, effectively, and promptly investigate those murders and bring thoseresponsible for and also those involved in these brutal acts to justice.” Parliament188189