However, Dzhokar Dudayev, president of Chechnya's new, unrecognized secessionist government, soon attempted to make the paper an official publication of his party, and Muradov and most of his staff quit.
[1] Muradov briefly fled the violence of the First Chechen War with his family, but unable to find work in Moscow, returned to restart the paper in 1995.
The Nazran offices of Groznensky Rabochy were searched by Russia's Federal Security Service and Ministry of Internal Affairs, while Wahhabi Chechen extremists declared a sentence of death for the paper's staff under Sharia law and began a series of threatening phone calls to the office.
[2] Muradov again moved with his family to Moscow to avoid the threats,[1] and the remainder of the Groznensky Rabochy staff spread out across Russia.
[4] The award citation praised Groznensky Rabochy as a "rare voice of reason" in the violence and distorted coverage of Chechnya, as well as Muradov's "refusal" to "become a mouthpiece for either side".