Ali Astamirov

CPJ research indicates that the following journalists have disappeared while doing their work. Although some of them are feared dead, no bodies have been found, and they are therefore not classified as "Killed." If a journalist disappeared after being held in government custody, CPJ classifies him or her as "Imprisoned" as a way to hold the government accountable for the journalist's fate.

As Russia assumed a world leadership role, chairing the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations and the Council of Europe’s powerful committee of ministers, the Kremlin cracked down on dissent and shrugged off astounding attacks on critics and journalists. In a grim year for the press, parliament passed a measure to hush media criticism by calling it “extremism,” and an assassin silenced Anna Politkovskaya, the internationally known reporter who exposed government abuses in Chechnya.

New York, August 21, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the fate of reporter Elina Ersenoyeva, who was seized by masked men in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya on Thursday. Ersenoyeva is Grozny correspondent for the independent weekly Chechenskoye Obshchestvo (Chechen Society), which is based in neighboring Ingushetia.

RUSSIA

President Vladimir Putin and his allies continued to expand control
over the media, using methods that critics called reminiscent of the Soviet era. Journalists who took on powerful political or business interests sometimes paid with their lives. Two journalists were killed in 2005 for their reporting. In the five years since Putin took power, 12 journalists have been killed in contract-style slayings. None of the killers have been brought to justice.

Dear Minister Lavrov:

The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the Foreign Ministry's pattern of using accreditation, visa and other regulations to control and intimidate journalists reporting on the war in Chechnya for foreign media. The Foreign Ministry escalated this campaign against foreign news media by moving this week to bar the U.S. television network ABC from reporting in Russia.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that ABC reporters have been denied access to government officials and that their accreditations will not be renewed when they expire. Authorities took this step after the network broadcast an interview with Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev on its news program, "Nightline," on July 28.

Politics, money, and the press stir a mysterious case. By Julia Crawford

Russia

A midyear purge of independent voices on state television and an alarming suppression of news coverage during the Beslan hostage crisis marked a year in which Russian President Vladimir Putin increasingly exerted Soviet-style control over the media. Using intelligence agents and an array of politicized state agencies, Putin pushed for an obedient and patriotic press in keeping with his ever tightening grip on Russia's deteriorating democracy.

Dear President Bush:

The Committee to Protect Journalists is extremely concerned about the dramatic decline in press freedom under Russian President Vladimir Putin's tenure, including a recent surge in new media restrictions spearheaded by the Kremlin and its allies.

Ongoing impunity for the murder of journalists, a series of proposed legal restrictions on the press, continued persecution of journalists reporting on the war in and around Chechnya, and informal censorship of regional television stations have strengthened the Kremlin's Soviet-style control over the independent media.

New York, July 29, 2004—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) calls on Russian President Vladimir Putin to ensure that government officials in the southern republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya end their campaign of harassment against the independent weekly Chechenskoye Obshchestvo (Chechen Society), which is based in Ingushetia's capital, Nazran.

According to Chechenskoye Obshchestvo Editor Timur Aliev, officials from the Interior Ministry's Organized Crime Directorate called him into their office in Nazran yesterday morning, July 28, and questioned him about the newspaper's recent reporting on human rights abuses committed by Chechnya's pro-Moscow authorities, as well as by Russian soldiers and security forces operating in Chechnya.

CPJ Update April 16, 2004 News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

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