It is getting to be almost a regular event when some Russian investigative journalist or researcher, who has revealed an item of Russian importance, is assassinated. Russia is number three, right after Iraq and Algeria, as the most dangerous country for journalists. Forty two journalists have been killed since 1992 and many of the murders have not been solved, according to recent articles distributed by Associated Press, or appearing in the National Post, Bloomberg News and The Daily Telegraph.
This week it was 51 year-old, Ivan Safronov, defense correspondent for Russia's lead newspaper, Kommersant, who died while ready to expose the fact that Russia is supplying Syria with a secret missile system. He fell from his fifth floor apartment window while preparing the story which he picked up while attending an arms fair at the United Arab Emirates . Safronov unearthed that Russia was preparing to restart a deal to sell Syria Iskander-E missiles - a deal that Russia had scrapped after the United States complained that they were arming rogue nations. He returned to Russia, from UAE, unable to write his article, with horrible stomach pains.
"It's clearly not a suicide," Igor Yakovenko, the head of Russian Union of Journalists told Ekho Moskvy radio, adding Mr. Safronov's death was "highly likely " to be attributed to his reporting. The union will launch its own investigation.
Last week, 53 year-old, Paul Joyal, a Russia specialist advising the US government, and the media, was shot in his driveway, in suburban Washington DC, days after conducting an explosive interview, on March 4, 2007, with Dateline NBC, where he said, "A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: if you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you, and we will silence you in the most horrible way possible."
In October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative reporter, was gunned down in her apartment elevator. She was doing research on the slaughters in Chechnya carried out by the Russians.
I wonder if the Moscow School of Journalism teaches self defense?
Open season on Russian journalists
Archived Articles | 16 Mar 2007 | Adu RaudkiviEWR
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