2009

Over the summer, as a book I’d written about the lives of murdered journalists went to press, a crusading human rights reporter from the Russian republic of Chechnya was shot dead. I was not surprised by the details of her murder, just as the Chechen reporter was not surprised she’d become a target for execution:…

A delegation, led by CPJ Board Member Kati Marton, and including Senior Advisor Jean-Paul Marthoz and Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova, had a two-hour-long substantive meeting today with 11 officials from Russia’s Investigative Committee, including Petros Gaibyan, the senior investigator in charge of the probes into Anna Politkovskaya’s and Paul Klebnikov’s murder…

Anatomy of Injustice: The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia   This report was researched and written by Nina Ognianova, CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, with assistance from Muzaffar Suleymanov, CPJ research associate, and Alex Lupis, CPJ Europe and Central Asia program coordinator from 2000 to 2006. The reporting is based on four…

It is a sad irony: While the world celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia itself is relapsing to some of its Soviet ways. In fact, for journalists, Russia is a more dangerous place now than it was during the Cold War. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists prepared this report to highlight the alarming and ongoing problem of deadly violence against critical journalists in Russia and the government’s consistent inability to bring justice in these cases. CPJ’s analysis points to systemic failures that if left unaddressed will further erode free expression and the rule of law in…

Secrecy, indifference, conflicts mar investigations into journalist deaths. Moscow has a responsibility to uphold the rule of law. Its international partners have an obligation, too.

By Jean-Paul MarthozThe struggle for human rights demands the exertion of internal and external pressure. If Russia has seemed resistant, it is not as impervious as it might seem.

Assassins targeted the internationally known journalists Paul Klebnikov and Anna Politkovskaya two years apart in Moscow. Despite promises, arrests, and trials, no one has been brought to justice.

By Leonid NikitinskyIf justice failed when juries acquitted suspects in two high-profile cases, it was not the jurors’ fault. Indeed, the jury system may prove the best route to justice.