(Moscow) A Russian investigative journalist working for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta was hospitalized after being beaten on Tuesday in Chechnya, a Russian republic in the Caucasus where reporters and activists are regularly attacked.
Chechnya expert Elena Milachina was attacked after traveling to Chechnya to cover the verdict in a trial, according to human rights NGO Memorial. A lawyer accompanying him was also assaulted.
“Elena Milachina’s fingers are broken and she loses consciousness from time to time,” the NGO said in a statement, adding that “her whole body is covered with bruises.”
In a video posted on social networks, the journalist told herself what she suffered.
“They (the assailants) came, they took our taxi driver out, made us lower our heads, tied my hands, put us on our knees and put a gun to our heads,” the journalist said. .
In photos posted by Novaya GazetaElena Milachina, sitting on a hospital bed, has both arms bandaged, her face swollen from beatings and sprayed with a green-colored substance similar to that used in attacks on Kremlin opponents in recent years years.
PHOTO THE COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE, SUPPLIED BY REUTERS
Elena Milachina
The car where journalist and lawyer Alexander Nemov were was attacked by “gunmen” on the way from the airport to the Chechen capital Grozny, according to Memorial.
“We kicked them violently, including in the face, threatened to kill them by putting a gun to their head” and repeating “‘We warned you. Get out of here and don’t write anything,’” Memorial said.
“This is a very serious attack that requires vigorous measures,” reacted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, telling the press that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed of this attack.
The Russian delegate for human rights, Tatiana Moskalkova, spoke by telephone with Mme Milachina, before announcing the transfer of the journalist to a different hospital in Beslan, in North Ossetia, a republic in the Caucasus neighboring Chechnya.
She stressed to the Interfax agency that the safety of the journalist “will be fully ensured”, calling for a “meticulous investigation” into this attack.
“Savage Aggression”
The organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said it was “horrified by this savage aggression”.
Elena Milachina has aroused the ire of the Chechen authorities in particular by documenting the extrajudicial executions that take place there.
PHOTO TASOS KATOPODIS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Elena Milachina
In February 2022, she had to temporarily leave Russia, according to her diary, after threats issued by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov who called her a “terrorist”.
On Tuesday, the journalist and the lawyer Alexandre Nemov went to Grozny for the statement of the verdict against Zarema Moussaïeva, the wife of a former Russian federal judge of Chechen origin, Saïdi Yangoulbayev, who became an opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov.
Arrested in January 2022 in northern Russia by Chechen law enforcement, Mme Musayeva was forcibly taken back to the Caucasus. Accused of “fraud” and “use of force” against a police officer, this 53-year-old woman was sentenced on Tuesday to five and a half years in prison by a court in Grozny.
Novaya Gazeta is one of the few bastions of the free press in Russia and its editor, Dmitry Muratov, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.
The newspaper’s commitment, particularly in covering human rights violations in Chechnya, cost the lives of several of its collaborators, who were murdered, Anna Politkovskaïa being the most famous.