The New York Times: “Violence against journalists is common in Russia, while convictions are rare in its deeply flawed judicial system.” And the violence continues. Oleg Kashin, 30, a reporter for the daily newspaper Kommersant, was attacked by unknown assailants November 6 and suffered a concussion, broken jaw, fractures in both legs and broken fingers. His next-door neighbor wrote on her blog that two men with a bouquet of flowers were waiting for Kashin outside his apartment building the night before the morning attack. The newspaper’s editor said he believed the attack was related to the journalist’s assignment covering youth political movements, protest actions against the government and other political events. His newspaper is popular among Moscow’s elite, and the attack was the lead story on government-controlled TV channels.
Shortly later, Anatoliy Adamchuk, a reporter for the Moscow suburban weekly Zhukovskiye Vesti, suffered a concussion and head injuries when two unidentified individuals attacked him from behind, striking him on the back of his head and delivering several more blows when he was down on the ground. He had been reporting on the arrest of children who protested against the cutting down of a forest as part of a road construction.
In a letter to Russia’s president and prime minister, Larry Martz and Kevin McDermott, co-chairmen of the OPC’s Freedom of Press Committee, wrote, “Perhaps significantly, Kashin and Adamchuk had recently been covering the same story, the controversial plan to build a highway through a forest near the town of Khimki. . . . Your Excellencies, we applaud President Medvedev’s recent decision to suspend construction of the highway pending more hearings. We are also gratified to learn that he has ordered Russia’s general prosecutor and interior minister to supervise the investigation of the beating of Kashin. . . . . We also hope that Aleksandr Bastrykin, chairman of the Investigative Committee, will add this to the 19 cases of murdered journalists that he recently agreed to pursue as ‘a matter of honor for us to solve.’ As we wrote you after that announcement, it will take more than promises to quell the world’s outrage at the impunity that has followed the killings of at least 52 journalists in your country since 1992, by the conservative count of our colleagues at the Committee to Protect Journalists.”