10 Nov 10 | Index Index, minipost
A Russian editor who was nearly killed in the attack two years ago, has been convicted of slander.
Mikhail Beketov, who is confined to a wheelchair and can barely speak, has been found guilty of insulting the local mayor by the court in Khimki. He has been instructed to compensate damages by paying 500 roubles (100 British pounds).
Beketov had been covering the plans to build the road through Khimki’s protected forest. Although the motorway works have been stopped, another journalist and an ecologist have been assaulted this month.
Oleg Kashin, a correspondent of Russia’s well-known paper Kommersant, has been badly beaten with an iron bar on Saturday. Two days earlier, Khimki opposition activist Konstantin Fetisov had his skull broken after being released from police, where he was questioned about the protest.
Mikhail Mikhailin, editor-in-chief of Kommersant said he is sure the attacks are connected to the articles written about the motorway. It has also been said that they carry the same signature.
Before Beketov endured brain damage and lost his right leg and four fingers in the attack in November 2008, his car was set on fire and his dog was killed. Nobody has been brought to court.
09 Nov 10 | Index Index, minipost
After last Saturday’s ruthless attack on Oleg Kashin, newspaper reporter Anatoly Adamchuk was beaten yesterday in the Russian capital. Adamchuk, who had reported on a protest against deforestation, was attacked by unidentified men in front of his newspaper office, in suburban Moscow.
Journalists are not the only media actors facing serious intimidation: Alexander Lebedev, owner of independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Britain’s Independent and Evening Standard, suffered an attack on one of his banks just before the attacks on the journalists took place.
08 Nov 10 | Index Index, minipost
A leading journalist for the Kommersant newspaper was brutally attacked outside his home in Moscow. Oleg Kashin was put into an induced coma following the assault and police are treating it as a case of attempted murder. Kashin’s editor Mikhail Mikhailin has suggested that the assault was retribution for articles covering anti-Kremlin protests and extremist rallies. He had previously received threats from nationalist youth groups. The beating was so savage that he suffered a concussion and multiple broken bones.
27 Oct 10 | Index Index, minipost, News and features
European Court of Human Rights has fined Russia for repeatedly refusing activists the right to hold gay pride marches.
The Moscow authorities claimed the parade would cause a violent reaction, but the court said Russia has discriminated against the gay community on grounds of sexual orientation.
Nikolai Alexeyev, the leading activist said it is a “crippling blow to Russian homophobia”. He also said he is planning to take the former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov to court.
Russia has been ordered to pay Alexeyev 29510 euros (25678 British Pounds) for legal fees and damages.
