Russia

The Ingush supreme court has ordered the release of the policeman who fatally shot Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the Ingushetiya.ru news website, on August 31, 2008, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. By reducing the gravity of the charge on which Ibragim Yevloyev (no relation) was convicted, the court was able to commute his two-year jail sentence to two years of “supervised residence...

A Moscow court has ruled against freelance journalist and former Soviet dissident Alexandre Podrabinek in a lawsuit by Second World War veteran Viktor Semenov, who claimed he was offended by an online article last September criticising government attempts to paint a rosy picture of the Soviet era. In its ruling, issued on January 27, the court ordered Podrabinek to pay Semenov 1,000 roubles (23...

More than 1,000 people took part in Tuesday's rally in Moscow in homage to journalist Anastasia Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov on the first anniversary of their murder. Young anti-fascist activists, representatives of human rights NGOs and above all ordinary citizens made up the unusually large crowd that defied freezing temperatures and marched with photos of Baburova and...

A Russian police officer who fatally shot an online publisher in government custody in 2008 was convicted of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in a low-security prison settlement Friday, Reuters and other news agencies reported. The family of the victim, Magomed Yevloyev, told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) they would appeal the verdict because their own...

Prominent Russian journalist Olga Kotovskaya was killed after she apparently fell from the 14th floor of a building in the centre of Kaliningrad (the capital of a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania) six days after a court ruled that she had been unfairly stripped of the TV station she had created, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Kotovskaya died on November 16, six days...

Russian freelance journalist Alexandr Podrabinek has gradually re-emerged in recent days after being forced into hiding by a hate campaign orchestrated by “patriotic” youth groups such as Nashi (Ours) but he is now the target of several lawsuits and Nashi is even suing foreign newspapers over their coverage of the case, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. “This affair has progressed from...

A Russian court has dismissed a libel action brought against the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta by the grandson of Josef Stalin, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Yevgeny Dzhugashvili had claimed that an article carried in a supplement of the newspaper on 22 April 2009 describing Stalin as a bloody dictator personally responsible for the execution of Soviet citizens and thousands...

Two libel suits have been brought in rapid succession against the Moscow-based independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta by Joseph Stalin’s grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili and Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. Dzhugashvili is demanding 10 million roubles (229,000 euros) in damages from Novaya Gazeta and journalist Anatoly Yablokov for an article published on...

Russian online journalist Aleksandr Podrabinek, 56, known for his sharp commentary on political and social issues, has gone into hiding after receiving a series of threats stemming from a September 21 commentary on the news website Yezhednevny Zhurnal that pointed out the human rights abuses of the Soviet government. Angered by Podrabinek’s piece, members of the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi (Ours...

An independent Russian journalist who wrote scathing articles after the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric dam disaster last month has been attacked in the city of Abakan, according to the Other Russia website. Mikhail Afanasyev, who works as the editor-in-chief of the Novy Fokus internet newspaper, related the news himself to the Kasparov.ru online newspaper on September 9. Details about the...