2009

Nina Ognianova, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, provided testimony to the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe on the pressing issue of impunity in journalist murders in Russia. The commission held a hearing this week on Russia’s human rights record. A transcript of the testimony follows:

New York, June 25, 2009–Russia’s Supreme Court today 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 there were procedural violations during the trial, according to press reports.

Dear President Obama: In advance of your July 6-8 summit in Moscow with President Dmitry Medvedev, we’d like to draw your attention to the pressing issue of impunity in violent crimes against journalists in Russia. We ask you to place this issue on the agenda for your talks. Seventeen journalists have been murdered for their work or have died under suspicious circumstances since 2000. In only one case have the killers been convicted. In every case, the masterminds remain unpunished.

New York, June 17, 2009–Authorities in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan should immediately halt efforts to shut the Makhachkala-based independent weekly Chernovik and should drop extremism charges against editor Nadira Isayeva and four reporters, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Sri Lankan journalists flee under severe pressure in the past year. Iraq and Somalia, two deadly countries for the press, also rank high in numbers of journalists forced into exile. Hundreds of journalists have been driven into exile this decade. By Karen Phillips

New York, May 5, 2009–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

We issued the following statement after Russia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office closed a criminal investigation into the unexplained death of investigative journalist Yuri Shchekochikhin in 2003…

We issued the following statement after press reports that the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta received a package containing severed donkey ears at its Moscow offices on Tuesday. The package came with a sign “from the administration of the president of the Russian Federation,” the business daily Kommersant reported…

New York, April 1, 2009–Police in the western city of Kaliningrad should drop trumped-up bribery charges against Arseny Makhlov, the founder of the independent weekly Dvornik, and allow him to work without fear of harassment, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.