Russia: Novaya Gazeta reporter badly injured in attack in Chechnya, RSF appalled by this barbaric act of intimidation
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is appalled by the latest violent attack on Novaya Gazeta reporter Elena Milashina, who was badly beaten and threatened shortly after arriving in the Russian republic of Chechnya this morning on 4 July to cover a trial. Such barbaric acts of intimidation will not prevent reporters from doing their job, RSF said.
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A shocking photo shows Elena Milashina afterwards, doused in a green antiseptic, with her head shaved and her fingers bandaged. In the attack, which prevented the RSF Laureate for Courage in 2020 from attending the trial, several of her fingers were broken and she suffered a head trauma and bruising on her body. She has been transferred to a hospital in Beslan, in the neighbouring republic of North Ossetia, together with the lawyer who was accompanying her, Aleksandr Nemov, who was himself stabbed in the attack.
“You have been warned – leave here and write nothing,” one of the assailants shouted at Milashina and Nemov, threatening them with a gun, after he and other masked men intercepted their car on the road from the airport to the Chechen capital, Grozny, early this morning, according to the Memorial Centre.
Sergey Babinets, the head of the Team Against Torture (former Committee Against Torture) managed to reach Milashina and Nemov after the attack. He reported on Telegram that their assailants beat them with clubs and kicked them, took their phones, smashed their equipment and destroyed their documents, all that while insulting them and referring to the trials and cases they have been following.
“We condemn this shocking attack on Elena Milashina. Such barbaric acts of intimidation by thugs working for the Chechen Republic’s boss, Ramzan Kadyrov, will not prevent journalists from continuing to cover what is happening there. Novaya Gazeta, a martyred newspaper co-founded by Nobel peace laureate Dmitry Muratov, whose licences have been suspended in Russia, has had five of its journalists murdered since Vladimir Putin came to power. We salute the incredible courage of Elena Milashina and her colleagues. Journalists continue tirelessly to investigate and report, despite the danger. Killing one of them does not kill their investigations.
Kadyrov threatened Milashina with violence in January 2022, shortly after the abduction of Zarema Musayeva, the woman whose trial was the reason for her visit to Chechnya. Sentenced today to five and a half years in prison, Musayeva is the wife of a former federal judge and mother of the presumed founders of the 1ADAT news site. She was “arrested” (abducted) by Chechen security forces at her home in Nizhny Novgorod, in the central part of European Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described today’s attack as “a very serious attack that requires vigorous measures.” The head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, Valery Fadeyev, said he would refer the attack to the prosecutor general's office and the Investigative Committee. So far, no Russian judicial investigation into any of the murders of a Novaya Gazeta journalist, including Anna Politkovskaya, has resulted in the arrest of any of the instigators.
Today’s attack came just one day after the 20th anniversary of the death of Novaya Gazeta deputy editor and investigative reporter Yuri Shchekochikhin, who had been threatened on several occasions, had covered corruption cases and had worked on Chechnya. He died in hospital on 3 July 2003, ten days after being admitted in a coma. The newspaper believed he was poisoned but the official investigation concluded that his death was the result of an allergy.
