List of journalists killed in Russia
The dangers to journalists in Russia have been known since the early 1990s but concern over the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006.
[citation needed] These revealed a basic confusion in terminology that explained the seemingly enormous numerical discrepancy: statistics of premature death among journalists (from work accidents, crossfire incidents, and purely criminal or domestic cases of manslaughter) were repeatedly equated with the much smaller number of targeted (contract) killings or work-related murders.
[2] Secondly, some monitoring bodies include only fatalities in crossfire and dangerous assignments and those murders where they feel sure of the motive behind the lethal attack and can with confidence lobby the appropriate government; the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) adopts this approach.
In Russia many directors of new regional TV and radio stations have been murdered[3][4] but some of these deaths are thought to relate to conflicting business interests.
Photographers and cameramen are vulnerable in crossfire situations, such as the October 1993 days in Moscow and the armed conflict in the North Caucasus.
Both the report Partial Justice[7] (Russian version: Частичное правосудие[8]) and the database depend on the information gathered in Russia over the last 16 years by the country's own media monitors: the Glasnost Defense Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.
At the time of his murder, he was thought to be investigating complex money laundering fraud scheme involving Chechen reconstruction projects.
The investigation appears to reveal that Klebnikov had discovered that the fraud reached deep into the centers of power in the Kremlin, elements involving organized crime, and also the former KGB, now known as the FSB.
After 16 years of unsolved killings, the international outcry over her death made this a test case that might finally breach the barrier of partial justice.
They call on Russian authorities to give investigators and courts the backing they need to identify and pursue all those responsible for the deaths of journalists and, in the meanwhile, to keep the press and the public better informed about their progress in tackling such disturbing crimes.
[20] Russia's problem, shared by certain other members of G20 (India, Brazil, and Mexico), is not simply one of the number of deaths but the persistence of killing with impunity continuing over many years.
The violent deaths of journalists began in the Boris Yeltsin era (1991–1999) and continued under Vladimir Putin, president of Russia from 31 December 1999 to 7 May 2008.
[citation needed] From 2003 to 2008, there were a rising number of trials[12] but by November 2009 there had yet to be a major breakthrough, under President Dmitri Medvedev, of either in the prosecution of pre-2008 deaths or the investigation of killings since his May 2008 inauguration.
The Politkovskaya murder trial and the first arrests in the Baburova-Markelov slaying (November 2009) showed some inconclusive signs of movement.
Trial by judge and jury, which is still very rare in Russia, generally offers a more rigorous testing of evidence, robust defence of the suspects, and a higher chance of the defendant being found not guilty (average acquittal rate of 20%).
If approximately three-quarters of journalists' murders over the past 16 years were not related to their investigations and publications However, the CJES considers that up to 70% of assaults, which annually run into the dozens, are work-related.
Since Vladimir Putin first became prime minister in 1999 (president from 2000), the Russian authorities have been urged repeatedly by Western governments and international media bodies to do more to investigate the deaths of journalists.
[41] In a report published in 2007, the International News Safety Institute said more journalists had died violent deaths in Russia in the previous 10 years than anywhere in the world apart from Iraq,[42] though it offered statistics rather than details of the individual victims.
[43] Immediately after Politkovskaya's murder doubts were expressed about the chances of justice being done, even though the victim in this case was a journalist who had acquired a worldwide reputation (cf.
[44] Recent killings, in various parts of Russia, of Ilyas Shurpayev,[45] Yury Shebalkin,[46] Konstantin Borovko[47] and Leonid Etkind[48] did indeed lead to trials and convictions.
However, Russia's sought-for status as a member of G8 from 1997 onwards set a benchmark that showed the continuing deaths of journalists, and of other media restrictions within the country, in an unfavourable light.
Also of importance was the country's admission to the Council of Europe and, as a result, the potential involvement, after 1998, of the European Court of Human Rights as an arbiter of last resort.
In 2005 it ruled that the October 1999 killing in Chechnya of cameramen Ramzan Mezhidov and Shamil Gigayev and of more than thirty other civilians who died during the same incident had not been properly investigated.
[171] Those killed in locations near or far from the North Caucasian republic (e.g. Natalya Alyakina, Anna Politkovskaya) whose deaths were also a consequence of the armed conflict in Chechnya.
