“That his murder should have occurred on remembrance day is a tragic and poignant reminder of the violence faced by journalists every day in all regions of Russia, “said Dr Agnes Callamard, Executive Director of Article 19, while in Moscow for the Remembrance event.

December 15 is the day of remembrance in Russia for journalists who died while performing their jobs, including those targeted and killed because of their work.

Russian authorities must carry out an urgent and effective investigation into assassination of Kamalov, founder of weekly Chernovik, which had tackled highly sensitive topics in the southern republic of Dagestan, says the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

“The assassination of Gadzhimurad Kamalov is a massive loss for independent journalism in the North Caucasus, Russia’s most dangerous place for reporters,” CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said.

Murder
A Chernovik staffer who witnessed the murder told CPJ that Kamalov was exiting Chernovik’s offices at around midnight local time on 15 December 2011when a masked gunman, apparently waiting outside the building, riddled him with bullets, then escaped the scene in a getaway Lada sedan, driven by an accomplice.

A masked assailant apparently lying in wait outside Chernovik’s Makhachkala offices fired 14 times at Kamalov. He died en route to a local hospital.

Kamalov
Khadimurad Kamalov, 46, founded Chernovik in 2003 and worked as its chief editor in 2005 and 2006, remaining as its publisher. He was a respected journalist and civil society activist, well-known for speaking out against human rights violations in the region.

In recent television interviews, Kamalov had made critical comments about alleged regional government corruption.

“Dagestan is sinking into idleness, into misguided scattering of federal money,” Kavkazsky Uzel quoted Kamalov as saying in a February interview with the national television channel NTV. “You would not see a single place in Russia with a bigger quantity of restaurants, banquet halls, saunas, casinos, and hookah parlors as Makhachkala.”

Kamalov’s name was among 15 included on a “death list” published anonymously and distributed in the form of a handout in Makhachkala in September 2009, according to Russian press reports. The handout, which named eight journalists among its targets, called for “destruction of the bandits and revenge for police officers and peaceful citizens.”

Chernovik
Chernovik is a very popular newspaper, with the second-largest print run in Dagestan. The paper is known for its independence and courageous coverage of government corruption, human rights abuses, and Islamic radicalism.

From 2008 until 2011, Chernovik and five of its journalists, including then-editor and CPJ International Press Freedom Award winner Nadira Isayeva, were subjected to a politically motivated prosecution on trumped-up “extremism” charges stemming from the paper’s critical coverage of regional police and the federal security service. The journalists were acquitted of the charges in May.

Biyakai Magomedov, the current editor of Chernovik, told CPJ that Kamalov had not disclosed recent threats. But a family member told the regional news website Kavkazsky Uzel that threats had been commonplace since the paper was launched in 2003.

“Since the time Chernovik started publishing, there have been a number of threats, and he had foes,” Khadzhimurad Radzhabov, a cousin and colleague of Kamalov, told Kavkazsky Uzel.

Investigation
International human rights and free speech orgamisations call on the Russian authorities to take all necessary measures to ensure that Khadimurad’s murder does not become another example of the environment of impunity that characterises attacks on journalists in Dagestan and Russia in general.

According to statistics gathered by the CPJ, the North Caucasus region of Russia continues to be one of the most dangerous places for journalists in the world. Despite numerous promises by the Russian leadership to create normal working conditions for activists and journalists in the region, killings and physical attacks on investigating journalists continue.

Impunity still reigns
Security of journalists in Russia needs to be improved. Impunity seems to reign; self-censorship strengthens even more after last parliamentary elections as media owners dismiss “disloyal” journalist.

The sad example of impunity is case of Oleg Cashin. A year ago two unidentified assailants awaited Oleg Kashin, a correspondent for the Russian business daily Kommersant, by his home on a central Moscow street. The two had hidden steel rods in bouquets of flowers.

With those special bouquets, they struck Kashin 56 times in 90 seconds. They hit him on his head, his hands, and his legs. His injuries were so severe that doctors medically induced a coma for two weeks.

This barbaric act shocked Russia’s journalist community. The beating symbolized an attack on journalism itself. Perhaps this is the reason why, for the first time in a long time, journalists from various, often competing publications came together in solidarity in the aftermath of the incident. They held a sustained vigil in front of the Interior Ministry in Moscow and a demonstration, calling for better protection of journalists.

This attack was promptly condemned by Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev. One year later, however, none of Kashin’s assailants have been arrested; those who commissioned the crime remain unknown.

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Russia: same old, same old

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Russia’s North Caucasus – human rights and conflict dynamics

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