Two unidentified assassins killed Alishayev, host of the
program “Peace to Your Home,” which was broadcast by TV-Chirkei in Makhachkala, the regional
capital of the southern Russian republic
of Dagestan. The
assailants shot Alishayev as he waited at
a traffic signal while driving home from a local mosque about 8 p.m., local press reports
said. He sustained head and shoulder wounds and died in a hospital the next
morning, the news agency Interfax reported.
In 2006, Alishayev was the main producer of a documentary
titled “Ordinary Wahhabism,” which criticized the conservative Sunni Islam sect
and its recent spread in Dagestan. According
to the independent Moscow
business daily Kommersant,
Alishayev received threats shortly after the film was released, and one radical
Islamist group included his name in a “death list” published on its Web site.
In his most recent programs, Alishayev promoted educational
reform and lobbied for gender separation in Dagestan’s schools, local press
reports said. Alishayev also advocated for the introduction of religious
education in high schools. Although addressing social issues, most of Alishayev’s
work was on religion, CPJ sources in the region said.
Arsen Akhmedov, a spokesman for the Dagestan
prosecutor’s office, told the news agency RIA Novosti that prosecutors
had opened a criminal investigation into the murder and had
preliminarily
identified a suspect.