2 More Journalists Are Attacked in Caucasus

MOSCOW — A television reporter was mortally wounded and a newspaper editor was severely beaten Tuesday in Russia’s north Caucasus region, bringing to three the number of attacks on journalists this week in the volatile area.

Telman Alishaev, a reporter for Islamic TV in Dagestan, died Wednesday after being shot on Tuesday while sitting in his car, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Miloslav Bitokov, who edits a weekly newspaper in Kabardino-Balkaria, a region in southern Russia, was hospitalized for head injuries after being attacked outside his home on Tuesday.

The assaults followed the killing on Sunday in nearby Ingushetia of Magomed Yevloyev, a journalist and prominent critic of Ingushetia’s president. Mr. Yevloyev was arrested and fatally shot in the head in what the police called an accident. A rights official from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called the killing an “assassination.”

There was no obvious connection between the attacks, but they all occurred along Russia’s southern border, where local authorities, aided by Moscow, have battled separatist movements for years.

[…]

The area is still plagued by violence, much of it by Russian security forces, despite the Kremlin’s suppression of an Islamic separatist movement in Chechnya.

The region has been further unsettled by the war between Russia and Georgia, and Russia’s recognition of two separatist regions in Georgia, which could breathe new life into several long-simmering disputes.

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Twenty journalists have been killed in Russia since 2000, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Elsa Vidal, who leads the Russian program at the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, said local journalists faced particularly intense pressure if they criticized authorities, and that the situation in Russia’s south has grown more intense.

“It’s just as if the Caucasus were entering a new phase of instability,” she said. “The fact that journalists are being targeted clearly indicates that the situation is worsening for common individuals.”

The three men were in vastly different businesses. Mr. Yevloyev, a former prosecutor, ran a Web site, Ingushetiya.ru, which was the single outlet that dared to criticize President Murat M. Zyazikov, a former general with Russia’s Federal Security Service.

Mr. Yevloyev and his father received death threats early this year, but “simply wanted to stay there to report what was going on,” said Clothilde Le Coz, who is in charge of Internet Freedom for Reporters Without Borders. “He was aware it was dangerous.”

[…]

The third attack occurred in Dagestan, where Russian troops have battled sporadically with insurgents since 2000. On Tuesday, Mr. Alishaev, who reported on Wahhabism, a strict Sunni sect, was shot in his car, said Mark Tolchinsky, a spokesman for Dagestan’s Interior Ministry.

A news radio station, Ekho Moskvy, reported that two unknown men shot him in the head and shoulder while he was sitting in his car, and that he died of his wounds early Wednesday. The report cited police sources who said that Mr. Alishaev became a target because of his criticism of Islamic extremism in Dagestan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/world/europe/04journalists.html?ex=1378180800&en=74f68cf4f65f0598&ei=5124&partner=facebook&exprod=facebook

Anger at death of Kremlin critic

Opposition leaders in Russia’s volatile Ingushetia region have condemned the killing of the owner of a website critical of the Kremlin.

Magomed Yevloyev was arrested and later shot after getting off the same flight as the local, Kremlin-backed leader.

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[…] opposition leaders say the killing is part of Russia’s policy of “open genocide” towards the Ingush people.

“The policy of double standards, which is pursued by the Russian leadership, and the open genocide of the Ingush people make us take cardinal decisions,” they said comments published on Mr Yevloyev’s website, Ingushetiya.ru.

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Opposition leaders said such actions increased the backing for those seeking secession from Russia.

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According to a lawyer close to the website, Mr Yevloyev was detained by police after landing at Nazran airport late on Sunday. They took him away in a car, Reuters reports.

“As they drove he was shot in the temple… They threw him out of the car near the hospital,” Kaloi Akhilgov said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7591509.stm

Owner of Russian opposition website killed

NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) - An opposition Internet news site owner in Russia’s troubled Ingushetia region was fatally shot on Sunday soon after being detained by police, and his colleagues called for a rally to protest his death.

Magomed Yevloyev is one of the most high-profile journalists to be killed in Russia since investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow apartment in 2006, provoking condemnation of Russia’s record on media freedom.

Yevloyev, owner of the http://www.Ingushetiya.ru website, was a vocal critic of the region’s Kremlin-backed administration, accused by opponents of crushing dissent and free speech.

A lawyer for the website — which survived repeated official attempts to close it down — said police met Yevloyev at the steps of the aircraft after he flew in to Ingushetia’s airport, put him in a Volga saloon car and drove him away.

“As they drove he was shot in the temple… They threw him out of the car near the hospital,” lawyer Kaloi Akhilgov told Reuters by telephone.

“He was discovered there and they quickly put him on the operating table, which is where he died.”

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Interfax news agency cited an unnamed law enforcement source as saying Yevloyev was shot by accident and said prosecutors had opened a criminal case for causing the death by carelessness.

Akhilgov said he doubted the shooting was an accident. “It was in no way a mistake,” he told Reuters.

Media freedom groups say Russia is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKLV16051920080831?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Criticism, speech and death: the case of Magomed Yevloyev

This just in and a sharp reminder of the cost of speaking openly and critically in some parts of the world. Magomed Yevloyed, owner of a website critical of the Kremlin found himself arrested — bad enough, but his arrest led to his death under suspicious circumstances.

See ingushetiya.wordpress.com/

According to the BBC, Yevloyev was a thorn in the side of Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, a former KGB general. His website reported on alleged Russian security force brutality in Ingushetia, an impoverished province of some half a million people, mostly Muslims, which is now more turbulent than neighbouring Chechnya. -more to follow

http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/~adillon/blog/archives/110