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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.
Vladimir Yatsina, ITAR-TASS, February 20, 2000, Chechnya Yatsina, a photographer with the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, was killed in Chechnya by Chechen militants who had taken him hostage. Two former hostages, Alisher Orazaliyev from Kazakhstan, and Kirill Perchenko from Moscow, reported the killing in statements recorded by Amnesty International after their release at the end…
THE ASCENDANCY OF PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN brought an alarming assault on press freedom in Russia last year. Under the new president, the Kremlin imposed censorship in Chechnya, orchestrated legal cases against powerful media barons, and granted sweeping powers of surveillance to the security services (see special report).
New York, January 4, 2001 — Of the 24 journalists killed for their work in 2000, according to CPJ research, at least 16 were murdered, most of those in countries where assassins have learned they can kill journalists with impunity. This figure is down from 1999, when CPJ found that 34 journalists were killed for…
“We have to protect the state from the media,” said Mikhail Lesin, the head of Russia’s new Ministry for the Press, Radio and Television Broadcasting, and Media Affairs, shortly after taking office in July. Coming in advance of the country’s legislative and presidential elections, it was a stunning statement of Kremlin intent. Lesin’s demonization of…
New York, February 29, 2000—CPJ is investigating reports that a Russian photographer kidnapped by Chechen rebels has been murdered. ITAR-TASS news agency photographer Vladimir Yatsina, 51, had been missing since July 19, 1999, following his arrival in the Ingushetian border town of Nazran. According to reports, he was then kidnapped and taken to Chechnya. At…
Your Excellency, The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by official Russian, Dagestani, and Chechen efforts to restrict media coverage of the conflict in Dagestan. On August 17, the new Russian Ministry for the Press, Television and Radio Broadcasting, and Media Affairs issued a formal warning to Russia’s national television networks barring them from broadcasting interviews with any of the Islamist rebel leaders now waging a separatist war against Russia in the Caucasus region of Dagestan. The warning was delivered to ORT Russian Public TV, the All Russia State TV and Radio Broadcasting Company, Russian TV, NTV, and TV-6.