Here is a video report that details a pattern of attacks against journalists in Russia. Reporters who dare to criticize the government are harrassed, picked up for interrogation, and in some cases, beaten badly. One journalist featured in the report had his fingers smashed so badly by thugs that three of his fingers had to be amputated. There appears to be little respect for the rule of law in Russia, with both Medvedev and Putin admitting that is the case. The law is used by those in power to keep their power.
From the conservative website, Heritage.org...
Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006
The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm
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Blowing up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB Terror
by Alexander Litvinenko, Yuri Felshtinsky, Geoffrey Andrews and Co (Translator)
Synopsis: Blowing Up Russia contains the allegations of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko against his former spymasters in Moscow which led to his being murdered in London in November 2006. In the book he and historian Yuri Felshtinsky detail how since 1999 the Russian secret service has been hatching a plot to return to the terror that was the hallmark of the KGB. Vividly written and based on Litvinenko's 20 years of insider knowledge of Russian spy campaigns, Blowing Up Russia describes how the successor of the KGB fabricated terrorist attacks and launched a war. Writing about Litvinenko, the surviving co-author recounts how the banning of the book in Russia led to three earlier deaths.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Blowing-up-Russia/Alexander-Litvinenko/e/9781594032011
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Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security agent fighting for his life in a UK hospital after allegedly being poisoned, has been a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin since before he became president in 2000.
Mr Litvinenko is thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another opponent of the Kremlin who was shot dead last month, and said recently he was investigating her murder. It was after being handed documents apparently relating to the case that he was taken ill more than two weeks ago.
But he is perhaps best known for a book in which he alleges that agents co-ordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people. He now appears to have fallen victim to the kind of plots which he wrote about.
Arrest
Mr Litvinenko, 43, first became a security agent under the Soviet-era KGB, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in its later incarnations.
He is reported to have fallen out with Vladimir Putin, then head of the security service, in the late 1990s, after failing in attempts to crack down on corruption within the organisation. In 1998, he first came to prominence by exposing an alleged plot to assassinate the then powerful tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who himself now lives in self-imposed exile in the UK. He was subsequently arrested on charges of abusing his office and spent nine months in a remand centre before being acquitted.
In 1999 he wrote Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, in which he accused the current Russian security service, the FSB, of carrying out several apartment house bombings in 1999 that killed more than 300 people. The attacks, which Moscow blamed on Chechen rebels, helped swing public opinion behind Russia's second war in the breakaway republic.
Petrol bombs
Complaining of persecution, in 2000 Mr Litvinenko fled to the UK where he sought, and was granted, asylum. But after settling in an unnamed London suburb, the former spy continued to behave as if on the run, constantly changing his contact details. The Times newspaper reported that over the summer someone tried to push a pram loaded with petrol bombs at his front door. Appearing alongside high-profile opponents of President Putin, he has continued to make allegations about his former bosses. Perhaps most notably, he alleged that al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was trained by the FSB in Dagestan in the years before 9/11.
http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/litvinenko.html
List of journalists killed in Russia...1992
* Sergey Bogdanovsky, correspondent of TV “Ostankino”, killed in Moscow[12]
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1993
* Rory Peck, ARD Germany operator, killed in Moscow on 3 October
* Ivan Scopan, TF-1 France operator, killed in Moscow on 3 October
* Igor Belozerov, 4th Channel Ostankino, killed in Moscow on 3 October
* Sergey Krasilnikov, editor of TV “Ostankino”, killed in Moscow on 3 October
* Vladimir Drobyshev, “People and nature” journal, killed in Moscow on 3 October
* Alexander Sidelnikov, freelance journalist from Saint Petersburg, killed in Moscow on 4 October
* Alexander Smirnov, Yoshkar-Ola based Youth Courier newspaper, killed in Moscow on 4 October
* Elena Tkacheva, proof-reader for Kuban Courier newspaper, killed in Krasnodar on 29 November as a result of a bomb exploding in the newspapers building
* Marina Iskanderova, journalist of a local TV station, murdered in her apartment in Nadym in December
* Dmitry Krikoryants, correspondent for Express Chronicle journal, murdered in his own apartment in Chechnya on 14 or 15 April.[13]
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1995
* Vladislav Listyev, head of the ORT TV Channel, killed in Moscow on March 1;
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2000
* Vladimir Yatsina, February 20, 2000. A correspondent for ITAR-TASS, he was kidnapped and later killed by a group of Wahhabis in Chechnya [14]
* Aleksandr Yefremov, May 12, 2000, Chechnya. A photojournalist of the western Siberian newspaper Nashe Vremya was killed in Chechnya when rebels blew up a military jeep in which he was riding. On previous assignments, Yefremov had won acclaim for his news photographs from the war-torn region.[citation needed]
* Igor Domnikov, from Novaya Gazeta, July 16, 2000, Moscow. Unknown assassin hit him repeatedly on the head with a hammer in the entryway of his apartment building in Moscow. The killer was never found. It is believed that the assailant mistook Domnikov for a Novaya Gazeta reporter Oleg Sultanov who received threats from the FSB for his reporting on corruption in the Russian oil industry.[6]
* Sergey Novikov, Radio Vesna, July 26, 2000, Smolensk. He was shot and killed in the stairwell of his apartment building. He often criticized the government of Smolensk Region.[citation needed]
* Iskandar Khatloni, Radio Free Europe, September 21, 2000, Moscow. He was killed at night with axe in his Moscow apartment by an unknown assailant. The motive of the murder is unknown, but Khatloni work on stories about the human-rights abuses in Chechnya.[15]
* Sergey Ivanov, Lada-TV, October 3, 2000, Togliatti. He was shot five times in the head and chest in front of his apartment building. He was director of Lada-TV, the largest independent television company in Togliatti, which was an important player on the local political scene.[16]
* Adam Tepsurgayev, Reuters, November 21, 2000, Chechnya. A Chechen cameraman, he was shot at a neighbor’s house in the village of Alkhan-Kala. He produced most of Reuters’ footage from Chechnya in 2000, including shots of Chechen rebel Shamil Basayev having his foot amputated.[citation needed]
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2001
* Eduard Markevich, 29, editor and publisher of local newspaper Novy Reft in Sverdlovsk Region, was found dead (shot in the back) on September 18. He often criticized local officials and had received threatening telephone phone calls prior to the murder. [17]
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2002
* Natalia Skryl, the Nashe Vremya newspaper, Taganrog town;
* Konstantin Pogodin, the Novoye Delo newspaper, Nizhni Novgorod city;
* Valeri Batuev, Moscow News newspaper, Moscow;
* Sergei Kalinovski, the Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Smolensk;
* Vitali Sakhn-Val’da, photojournalist, Kursk town;
* Leonid Shevchenko, the Pervoye Chteniye newspaper, Volgograd;
* Valeri Ivanov, the chief editor for the Tol’yattinskoye Obozrenie newspaper, the Samara region;
* Sergei Zhabin,the press service of the governor of the Moscow region;
* Nikolai Vasiliev, Cheboksary city, Chuvashia;
* Leonid Kuznetsov, the Mescherskaya Nov’ newspaper, the Ryazan region;
* Paavo Voutilainen, a former main editor of the Kareliya magazine, Kareliya;
* Roddy Scott, the Frontline-TV TV Company, from Great Britain.
* Alexandr Plotnikov, the Gostiny Dvor newspaper, Tyumen city;
* Oleg Sedinko, the founder of the Novaya Volna TV and Radio Company, Vladivostok city;
* Nikolai Razmolodin, the general director of the Europroject TV and Radio Company, Ulyanovsk town;
* Igor Salikov, the chief of the Department of information safety of the Moskovskiy Komsomolets newspaper in Penza;
* Leonid Plotnikov, the publishing house “Periodicals of the Mari-El”, Yoshkar-Ola.[18]
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2003
* Aleksei Sidorov, Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye, October 9, 2003, Togliatti. He was the second editor-in-chief of local newspaper, “Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye” to be shot to death. His predecessor, Valery Ivanov, was shot in April 2002. The newspaper was known for reporting on organized crime and corruption in the industrial city of Togliatti.[citation needed]
* Yuri Shchekochikhin, Novaya Gazeta, July 3, 2003, Moscow. Deputy editor of the Novaya Gazeta, he died just a few days before his scheduled trip to USA to discuss the results of his journalist investigation with FBI officials. He investigated “Three Whales Corruption Scandal” that involved high-ranking FSB officials. Shchekochikhin died from an “acute allergic reaction”. There are many speculations about cause of his death.
* Dmitry Shvets, TV-21 Northwestern Broadcasting, April 18, 2003, Murmansk. He was deputy director of the independent television station TV-21 Northwestern Broadcasting. He was shot dead outside his station offices. Shvets’ colleagues said their station had received multiple threats for its reporting on influential local politicians.[citation needed]
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2004
* Yefim Sukhanov, ATK-Media, Archangelsk;
* Farit Urazbayev, cameraman, Vladivostok TV/Radio Company, city of Vladivostok;
* Adlan Khassanov, Reuters reporter, killed in Grozny;
* Shangysh Mondush, correspondent for newspaper Khemchiktin Syldyzy, Tuva Republic;
* Paul Klebnikov, editor of Russian version of Forbes magazine, Moscow;
* Payl Peloyan, editor of Armyansky Pereulok magazine, Moscow;
* Zoya Ivanova, BGTRK broadcaster, Republic of Buryatia;
* Vladimir Pritchin, editor-in-chief of North Baikal TV/Radio Company, Republic of Buryatia;
* Ian Travinsky, Saint Petersburg, killed in Irkutsk;[19]
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2005
* Pavel Makeyev, reporter for TNT-Pulse Company, Rostov-on-Don;
* Magomedzaghid Varisov, Makhachkala;
* Alexander Pitersky, Baltika Radio reporter, Saint Petersburg;
* Vladimir Pashutin, newspaper Smolensky Literator, Smolensk;
* Tamirlan Kazikhanov, press service head, Anti-Terrorist Center of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs’s Main Department for the Southern Federal District, Nalchik;
* Kira Lezhneva, reporter, newspaper “Kamensky Worker”, Sverdlovsk Region.[20]
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2006
* Vadim Kuznetsov, editor-in-chief of journal “World and home. Saint Petersburg”, killed in Saint Petersburg
* Vaghif Kochetkov, newspaper Trud (Labor), killed in Tula
* Ilya Zimin, worked for NTV Russia television channel, killed in Moscow by an acquaintance
* Vyacheslav Akatov, special reporter, “Business Moscow” TV show, killed in Moscow Region
* Anton Kretenchuk, cameraman, 38th TV Channel, killed in Rostov-on-Don
* Yevgeny Gerasimenko, newspaper “Saratovsky Rasklad”, Saratov
* Vlad Kidanov, freelance journalist, Cheboksary
* Alexander Petrov, editor-in-chief, “Right for Choice” magazine, killed near Omsk - in Altai Republic
* Vyacheslav Plotnikov, reporter, 41st TV Channel, Voronezh
* Anna Politkovskaya, observer, newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Moscow, shot in her apartment building’s elevator;[21][22][23][24]
* Anatoly Voronin, business chief of ITAR-TASS; Moscow, stabbed to death in his home
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2007
* Konstantin Brovko, journalist of TV company “Gubernia”, killed in Khabarovsk
* Ivan Safronov, Military columninst of newspaper “Kommersant”. Died in Moscow on March 2 - cause of death disputed.[25][26]
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2008
* Ilyas Shurpayev, Dagestani journalist responsible for news coverage of Northern Caucasus on Channel One, was strangled with a belt by the robbers in Moscow.[27][28]
* Gaji Abashilov, chief of Dagestan outlet of VGTRK, shot in his car.
* Magomed Yevloyev, owner of Ingushetiya.ru, shot while in custody of Ingush police officers.[29][30][31].
* Abdulla Alishayev, Dagestani journalist fatally wounded by unknown assailants.[32]
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2009
* Anastasia Baburova (Novaya Gazeta)[33]. She was with human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who reportedly was the target of the assasin.[34]
* Yevgeny Lukinov, a Channel One reporter died in Tskhinvali, South Ossetia on 30 May, 2009. “The journalist died on Saturday morning in a private house in Tskhinvali,” Channel One said. According to a spokeswoman the death was an accident.[35]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia
