Russian Impunity

Prominent journalist and human rights activist Natalya Estemirova has been murdered in Chechnya. Estemirova, 50, was abducted Wednesday morning in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, as she was leaving her apartment for work, Reuters reported. She was found shot in the head and the chest in the neighbouring region of Ingushetia at around 5 p.m.. Estemirova was an activist with the Moscow-based human...

Russian newspaper editor Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, who spent weeks in a coma after being attacked and beaten outside his home on April 29, succumbed to his injuries Monday in the southwestern city of Rostov-on-Don. He was 63. Yaroshenko, editor-in-chief of the Rostov-on-Don newspaper Korruptsiya i Prestupnost, was found unconscious with a head wound in the entrance of his apartment building early on...

Russia's Supreme Court has overturned the acquittals of three men accused of involvement in the October 2006 murder of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya. A spokesman for the court said on Thursday that there were procedural violations during the trial, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. In February, a 12-member jury in Moscow acquitted Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) is pinning its hopes on the appointment of a new judge on June 3 to conduct the investigation into the death of Magomed Yevloyev, the owner of the Ingushetiya.ru (now Ingushetia.org) news website and opponent of former Ingush President Murat Zyazikov. Yevloyev was shot dead while in police custody in Magas, Ingushetia’s new capital, in August 2008. The appointment...

Authorities in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan are attempting to shut down the Makhachkala-based independent weekly Chernovik and have levelled extremism charges against editor Nadira Isayeva and four reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. On Monday, the local branch of Russia's state media regulator Rossvyazkomnadzor filed a lawsuit against Chernovik in...

Elena Maglevannaya, a Russian journalist who was recently ordered to pay a fine of 200,000 roubles (4,500 euros) and to publicly retract her articles about the torture of a Chechen detainee, has asked for political asylum in Finland, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. She filed her asylum request while in Helsinki to attend a civic forum organised by the Finnish human rights group...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned journalist Elena Maglevannaya’s conviction by a court in the southern city of Volgograd of defaming the prison service in articles about torture in Russian prisons that she wrote for the website Vestnikcivitas. Some of the articles were about the case of Zubayr Zubayrayev, a young Chechen imprisoned in Volgograd. In a May 13 ruling, the court found...

Authorities in Rostov-on-Don must launch a criminal investigation into a possible attack on the editor-in-chief of an independent newspaper who was found unconscious with a head wound in the early morning of April 30, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded. Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor of Korruptsiya i Prestupnost (Corruption and Crime), was found at the foot of a staircase in...

Police in the Moscow suburb of Khimki must conduct a thorough investigation into the sudden death of newspaper designer Sergei Protazanov, the circumstances of which are in dispute, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Anatoly Yurov, chief editor of the pro-opposition Grazhdanskoye Soglasiye, told CPJ that he spoke with his employee by telephone on Monday. Protazanov, 40, said an...

Russian authorities should thoroughly investigate the March 12 beating of Maksim Zolotarev, an editor at the independent newspaper Molva Yuzhnoye Podmoskovye in the town of Serpukhov, Moscow Region, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. Zolotarev told Radio Svoboda—the Russian Service of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty—that three unidentified men in hooded jackets...