On Thursday, US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller expressed the United States’ astonishment at the brutal beating of the famous Russian journalist, Yelena Milashina, and lawyer, Alexander Nemov, in Chechnya, on July 4.
Miller called in statementThe Russian government calls for a prompt, impartial and transparent investigation into the circumstances of “this barbaric attack and to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice”.
“Ms. Milashina, recipient of the US State Department’s International Women of Courage Award 2013, covered many of Russia’s most controversial topics with passion, fairness, and dedication,” the State Department statement noted.
He explained that “violently assaulting her for carrying out her duties as a journalist is an affront to respect for freedom of expression, which is a fundamental freedom stipulated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
“The attack on Ms. Milashina is tragically the latest in a pattern of violence against prominent investigative journalists in Russia that has met little resistance from the Russian authorities,” he emphasized.
The statement stressed that “the Russian government continues to violate not only its international commitments and commitments in the field of human rights, but also the basic commitments it made to its people in its constitution.” “The people of Russia deserve better,” the statement concluded.
On Tuesday, Milashina, an expert on Chechnya, was attacked after she went to the Russian republic in the Caucasus to cover the verdict hearing in one of the cases, according to the Russian non-governmental organization “Mourial” concerned with the defense of human rights.
In pictures published by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper on Telegram, Milashina appeared on a hospital bed with bandages on her arms, while the assailants sprayed her face with a green substance, and it appeared to be swollen.
Novaya Gazeta journalist Elena Milashina sits after receiving medical treatment in Moscow, Wednesday, July 5, 2023. Milashina, prominent Russian investigative reporter has received a brain injury and multiple fractures when she and a lawyer…
Memorial explained that the car in which the journalist was accompanied by the lawyer, Alexander Nemov, was attacked by “armed men” on the road between the airport and the Chechen capital, Grozny.
The Russian delegate for human rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, made a phone call to Milashina before announcing the transfer of the journalist to another hospital in Bisan in the Republic of North Ossetia, neighboring Chechnya in the Caucasus.
The journalist angered the Chechen authorities by documenting, especially, extrajudicial executions carried out there.
In February 2022, Milashina was forced to leave Russia for a while, according to her newspaper, after the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, made threats to her, describing her as a “terrorist.”
On Tuesday, the journalist and lawyer, Alexander Nemov, went to Grozny to attend the reading of the verdict against Zarema Musayeva, the wife of the former Russian federal judge, Saidi Yagulbayev, who became an opponent of Kadyrov.
The judge’s wife was accused of “fraud” and “using force” against a policeman.
On Tuesday, a court in Grozny sentenced her to five and a half years in prison.
It is noteworthy that the newspaper “Novaya Gazeta” is one of the last bastions of press freedom in Russia, and its editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021.
The newspaper, due to its commitment to covering human rights violations in Chechnya in particular, incurred human losses with the assassination of a number of its employees, the most famous of whom was the journalist, Anna Politkovskaya.
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2023-07-06 19:56:56
