Sad achievements

Russia ranks third in the world in the number of murders of journalists and ninth in the number of unsolved murders of media workers. This is stated in the report of the international Committee to Protect Journalists. Seventeen journalists have been killed in Russia since 2000 “in retaliation for their official activities,” the report says. At the same time, it was mentioned that the murder of three more journalists - Natalya Estemirova, who was not only a human rights activist, but also a journalist who wrote for Novaya Gazeta, Adbulmalik Akhdilov, editor of two Dagestani newspapers, and Vyacheslav Yaroshenko, editor of the Rostov newspaper Corruption and Crime - occurred while the Committee's report was being prepared for publication. According to the report's authors, the murdered journalists "had one thing in common: they all published critical materials that threatened influential figures in government, business, law enforcement or organized crime groups." However, in only one case did the court find the killers guilty (the murder in 2000 of Novaya Gazeta reporter and special projects editor Igor Domnikov, who harshly criticized the administration of the Lipetsk region; the report notes that the verdict against members of the criminal group was the result of many years of work by the journalist’s colleagues ). The authors of the report emphasize that the sad statistics in connection with the murders of journalists and the investigation of these crimes “contrast sharply with the official statistics on the detection of murders in Russia as a whole.”

The failure to achieve justice in the case of the deaths of journalists is, in part, a reflection of a political situation in which critical journalists, at the behest of the Kremlin, are perceived as marginalized. Journalists who do not approve of the actions of the authorities, as a rule, do not work for state television channels; their activities are hampered by political and bureaucratic restrictions. Investigations into their murders are conducted in secrecy, complicated by conflicts of interest and subject to “undue influence from external political forces.” The Committee notes that investigators often simply do not follow up leads related to the professional activities of victims, do not study their materials and do not interrogate people with whom they were associated through work. In court, work was carried out with violations, prosecutors had a weak evidence base, judges made controversial decisions - they closed trials, refused to ensure the safety of the jury. Thus, self-censorship arose in the Russian press, and journalists began to report important issues insufficiently.

The report's authors state that the murders of Russian journalists are not just an internal Russian problem: “The international community has a deep interest in ensuring that basic human rights to life and freedom of expression are not violated in Russia. And when a powerful nation, an influential member of numerous international organizations, fails to protect basic human rights, those rights are eroded in other countries as well.”

The committee calls on the country's leaders to stop the marginalization and criminalization of critical journalism, clearly condemn any attacks on journalists, and demand concrete action from law enforcement agencies to investigate these attacks. All 17 cases mentioned in the report (among them the murders of Paul Klebnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Anastasia Baburova) must be re-investigated, and the authorities must provide the international community with a report on what has been done to solve the problem.