From a distance, it may look like the Russian media is fairly free and independent. The Russian Constitution even declares open discussion and freedom of expression as constitutional rights. That, however, has nothing to do with the reality.

In fact, being an oppositional journalist or publishing material on topics of urgency may be dangerous and cost the health, sometimes even the life, of the authors. Due to dragged-out investigations or unfair trials, most of the perpetrators go unpunished. In its annual report for 2008, the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), an international human rights organization based in Geneva, reaches a total of 95 journalists killed in 32 countries oround the world in 2008. The report makes it clear that in the Russian Federation, the situation has most certainly deteriorated with more journalists killed and injured in 2008 than in previous years. Russia is now among the top ten most dangerous countries to report from, says PEC, with 4 media workers killed, mostly in the Caucasus hostilities.

Journalists under attack
In December, journalists came under attack in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, on Sakhalin Island and in Kaliningrad.

In Sachalin Region…
In Kholmsk, Sakhalin Region, Anatoly Mukhlisov, a sports observer for the newspaper Sakhalinsky Moryak, was returning home when an unidentified young man ran up to him and, without saying a word, tore away his handbag with a photo camera. The journalist ran after the thief in a bid to return his camera but, running across a dark yard, he was suddenly attacked and beaten up. According to Sakhalin.info, A. Mukhlisov was found unconscious by a passer-by who called an ambulance. The journalist was taken to hospital with facial bone fractures, a concussion, and numerous bruises. The police have launched an investigation.

Two days later in Kaliningrad…
Two days later, on December 15, Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent Pyotr Startsev was attacked in Kaliningrad in the westernmost region of the Russian Federation. He, too, was returning home late at night when a young man asked him for a smoke not far from the Mega entertainment center. Startsev, who was talking on the phone, asked the man not to disturb him. Taking a turn into a side-street, Pyotr suddenly received a blow on the back of his head, was pushed off his feet and kicked into the ribs by two attackers who stole his cell phone and disappeared. The journalist was taken to hospital with a concussion and an eye injury.

In Karachaevo-Cherkessia…
In Karachaevo-Cherkessia on December 22, Regnum news agency correspondent Jeanne Akbasheva, who had prepared a series of critical stories about the republican government’s performance, was attacked while fulfilling an editorial assignment. The victim recalls: “Late on December 22 I was on my way to the newspaper Cherkess Kheku office. I had left the Atrium building in Lenin Street and taken a shortcut into a side-street. It is there that two unidentified men attacked me. One, stalking on me from behind, closed my mouth with his palm, and the other gave me several blows in the stomach. They said if I didn’t stop writing about some members of the republican administration I would have a really hard time later. Then they threw me off onto the ground and one of the attackers gave me a heavy kick. It all happened too quickly and suddenly, and it was too dark for me to see their faces.” The Regnum news agency intends to appeal to the republic’s leadership to protect freedom of expression in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, and to the law enforcement agencies to investigate the assault and call the perpetrators to justice.

In Dalnerechensk…
Following a series of critical publications about local authorities’ performance, Alexandra Nabokova, Arsenyevskiye Vesti (AV) correspondent in Dalnerechensk, has been receiving anonymous threats.

After the first critical report, Alexandra had an insulting phrase daubed on her apartment’s door. A week later, after Arsenyevskiye Vesti carried another critical article on December 18, she had a late-night phone call from an unidentified man who said: “It seems you didn’t get the message? Just one more publication like that – and that’ll be the end of you!”

Since the threats are linked with the journalist’s professional activities, the AV editor sent Maritime Prosecutor Yuri Khokhlov a message urging him “to take due response measures to protect journalist Alexandra Nabokova against any encroachment on her life, honor or dignity”.

In Murmansk…..

Shafig Amrakhov, editor of the online regional news agency RIA 51, attacked on the evening of December 30 by at least one unknown man waiting for him by the elevator in his Murmansk apartment building, died in a Murmansk hospital on January 5. Amrakhov was conscious immediately after the attack, according to local news reports, and told details to his relatives – he had called his family using the building’s intercom minutes before, asking them to buzz him in. The assailant shot the journalist in the head and ran out. An ambulance took him to the Murmansk Regional Hospital, where he underwent a six-hour-long emergency surgery.

According to the Moscow-based Glasnost Defense Foundation, this was not the first attack against Amrakhov. In 1997, an unknown assailant attacked the journalist in the entrance of his apartment building and hit him on the head with a blunt object; he suffered a concussion, the foundation reported. The attacker was never found.

In February 2008, Amrakhov publicly protested the authorities’ decision to deny him accreditation for then – President Vladimir Putin’s last press conference as head of state. In his public letter – carried by local media – Amrakhov also criticized the economic policy of Murmansk Governor Yuri Yevdokimov.