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On March, the 15th Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held a meeting with the members of the presidential Council for Promoting Civil Society and Human Rights. Within the meeting a wide range of problems has being discussed including courts ‘ independence, attacks on human rights activists and journalists, ecology issues, youth problems, relations between authorities and NGOs etc.

Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow newspaper that has paid a deadly price for its reporting during a period when the Kremlin has sought to rein in independent media, has been named winner of the International Press Institute’s 2009 Free Media Pioneer Award. Right, Gazeta Editor Dmitry Muratov observing last rites over the coffin of one of the four Novaya Gazeta journalists who have been killed in recent years.

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev suggests that legislation on NGO should be amended and positive dialog between the powers and non-governmental organizations be established. The president encouraged human rights activists and NGOs to intensify their work towards respect for human rights in the conditions of economic crisis and unemployment.

The attack last night on Lev Ponomaryov, right, Executive Director of the independent organisation ‘For human rights,’ adds to the rapidly growing number of violent crimes against Russian opposition activists, journalists and human rights defenders.

The applicants, whose claims were satisfied on March 12 were residents of the Chechen settlements Urus-Martan and Tsotsi-Yurt. Their relatives disappeared after being detained and taken away by armed people in masks in the period of 2001-2003. Nothing is known about them since.

SOVA Center claims that Russian citizens face lots of problems when seeking to exercise their right to freedom of conscience. Russian anti-extremism legislation is unable to control the process.

Maxim Zolotarev, an editor with the independent Molva Yuzhnoye Podmoskovye newspaper, was attacked with pepper spray and then beaten with clubs as he left for work at about 12:30 p.m. on March 12. The unknown attackers fled in a Mitsubishi sedan.

Regional branch of Russia’s Union of Journalists initiated picket in the support of the journalist Vadim Rogozhin who was attempted on the March, the 5th.

-Journalists remain the most defenseless “fighters for a just world order”, the Russian Union of Journalists say in its statement pledging support for another Russian journalist being attempted.