The dangers to journalists in Russia have been known since the early 1990s but concern over the number of unsolved killings soared after Anna Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow on 7 October 2006. While international monitors mentioned a dozen deaths, some sources within Russia talked of over two hundred fatalities.
The evidence has since been examined and documented in two reports, published in Russian and English, by international organizations. These revealed a basic confusion in terminology that explained the seemingly enormous numerical discrepancy: statistics of premature death among journalists (from work accidents, crossfire incidents, and purely criminal or domestic cases of manslaughter) were repeatedly equated with the much smaller number of targeted (contract) killings or work-related murders. It is worth considering that while not all murders can be linked directly to the Kremlin, the frequency of these murders and their effects on Russian independent media certainly suggest complacency on the part of law enforcement officials.
The Remembrance Day of Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty in Russia is observed on 15 December every year.
Methodology Among international monitors, the figures quoted for deaths of journalists in Russia have varied, sometimes considerably. There are several explanations. Firstly, certain organisations are concerned with all aspects of safety in news gathering so the International Federation of Journalists and the International News Safety Institute also record accidents that have occurred at work.KILLING THE MESSENGER: The report on the global inquiry into the protection of journalists, INSI: Brussels, 2007. Secondly, some monitoring bodies include only fatalities in crossfire and dangerous assignments and those murders where they feel sure of the motive behind the lethal attack and can with confidence lobby the appropriate government; the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) adopts this approach. Thirdly, the term "journalist" is used by monitors as a general term to cover many different occupations within the media. Some include support staff, others do not.
In any list of deaths, compiled by monitors inside or outside the country, Russia ranks near the top for deaths. When the killing began, the brief First Chechen War took numerous journalists' lives from within Chechnya and abroad. There were also increased peacetime deaths of journalists elsewhere in the Russian Federation.
Those deliberately targeted for their work tended to be reporters, correspondents, and editors. In Russia many directors of new regional TV and radio stations have been murdered"Contract killings", p. 21, PARTIAL JUSTICE, IFJ: Brussels, June 2009. but some of these deaths are thought to relate to conflicting business interests. Photographers and cameramen are vulnerable in crossfire situations, such as the October 1993 days in Moscow and the armed conflict in the North Caucasus.
2009 reports on deaths of journalists in Russia In June 2009, a wide-ranging investigation by the International Federation of Journalists into the deaths of journalists in Russia was published. At the same time, the IFJ launched an online databaseJOURNALISTS IN RUSSIA, Deaths and Disappearances: An online database IFJ, October 2009.ЖУРНАЛИСТЫ В РОССИИ. Смерти и исчезновения. База данных Международная федерация журналистов. which documents over three hundred deaths and disappearances since 1993. Both the report Partial JusticePARTIAL JUSTICE: An inquiry into the deaths of journalists in Russia, 1993-2009, IFJ: Brussels, June 2009. (Russian version: Частичное правосудиеЧАСТИЧНОЕ ПРАВОСУДИЕ. Исследование смертей журналистов в России, 1993-2009. Международная федерация журналистов.) and the database depend on the information gathered in Russia over the last 16 years by the country's own media monitors: the Glasnost Defense Foundation and the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations.
In September, in the report Justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) repeated its conclusion that Russia was one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists and added that it remains among the worst at solving their murders. Journalists died or were killed, the CPJ argued, because of the work they were doing and only one case has led to a partially successful prosecution.
Following Russia's media monitors, the IFJ database of deaths and disappearances in Russia takes into account the entire range of media occupations and every degree of uncertainty as to the motive for many of the attacks. It also allows for selection and analysis. It classifies the way in which a journalist died (homicide, accident, crossfire, terrorist act, or not confirmed) and it assesses each death as certainly, possibly, or most probably not, linked to the journalist's work.
Since the early 1990s, Russia's media monitors have recorded every violent or suspicious death that came to their attention. Determining which were linked to the journalist's work has not always been easy since law enforcement agencies in Russia were struggling to cope with a wave of murders and the number of unsolved killings of journalists steadily mounted. In the last few years, the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations has gathered all available information about these deaths on its Memoriam site.MEMORIUM. Погибшие и пропавшие без вести журналисты. The site covers the entire Commonwealth of Independent States. This made it possible to check how much these deaths have been investigated and how many have led to court cases. The IFJ data base summarises the information accumulated on the Memoriam site and makes it available in English for the first time. During a study of international fraud-detection homicide, which compared fraud detection homicide cases from the United States of America against fraud detection homicide cases from the former Soviet Republic, the murder of Paul Klebenikov illustrated a case of a contract killing of a journalist known to expose fraud in governments. At the time of his murder, he was thought to be investigating complex money laundering fraud scheme involving Chechen reconstruction projects. The investigation appears to reveal that Klebnikov had discovered that the fraud reached deep into the centers of power in the Kremlin, elements involving organized crime, and also the former KGB, now known as the FSB.Perri, Frank S. and Lichtenwald, Terrance G. (2008). A Tale of Two Countries: International Fraud-Detection Homicide, Forensic Examiner, 72-78
Partial Justice and Anatomy of Injustice The IFJ report Partial Justice maps the changing contours of impunity in Russia. It shows and explains the process whereby particular deaths are selected by the IFJ, CPJ, and other monitors. It stresses the need for an end to total impunity in those remaining regions (the North Caucasus, St Petersburg) where no one has ever been prosecuted for killing a journalist,See charts 2 & 3, PARTIAL JUSTICE, June 2009. "Killing with impunity in Russia, 1993-2008", pp. 11, 12. and for an advance beyond partial justice in those cases where it is known, or strongly suspected, that the murder of a journalist was planned and premeditated. It is not enough to put the killer on trial; they must be accompanied, or followed, by their accomplices, and the intermediaries and individuals who ordered and paid for the killing.
The IFJ report opens and closes with the Politkovskaya murder and the subsequent trial, which ran from November 2008 to February 2009. After 16 years of unsolved killings, the international outcry over her death made this a test case that might finally breach the barrier of partial justice. The evidence presented by the prosecution did not convince the jury or satisfy other key participants.See "The whole system stands condemned", 20 February 2009, Novaya gazeta. Transcript of press conference following verdict. Anatomy of Injustice, the report by the CPJ, displays the conclusions the committee has reached about certain deaths since 2000: the authorities do not acknowledge some of these deaths as homicide,See discussion of Makeyev, Shchekochikhin and Safronov cases, ANATOMY OF INJUSTICE, September 2009 pp. 24-25, 26-27, while several others reached the courts but have led at most to the conviction of the perpetrator, not those who ordered the killing.
Following different routes the two reports reach a similar set of recommendations. They call on Russian authorities to give investigators and courts the backing they need to identify and pursue all those responsible for the deaths of journalists and, in the meanwhile, to keep the press and the public better informed about their progress in tackling such disturbing crimes.
International comparisons In the 1990s and early 2000s, the homicide rate in Russia was among the highest in the world."Russian murder rate among world's worst". The Independent. 20 July 1993."Russia – Crime Statistics". Library of Congress Country Studies. There were over 500 contract killings in Russia in 1994."Moscow Journal; To the Business Risks in Russia, Add Poisoning". The New York Times. 1995. The committee to Protect Journalists lists Russia as "the third deadliest country in the world for journalists" since 1991, exceeded in the number of deaths only by Algeria (1993–1996) and post-invasion Iraq."Exiled journalists, CPJ brief US congressional caucus on dangers facing Russian journalists", CPJ news release, 28 June 2007. Retrieved 8 July 2007. Setting Russia alongside its G20 partners – not just the US and France, but also Saudi Arabia and China (see Table 1, in the IFJ report)."Some international comparisons", p. 9, PARTIAL JUSTICE, IFJ: Brussels, June 2009. Russia's problem, shared by certain other members of G20 (India, Brazil, and Mexico), is not simply one of the number of deaths but the persistence of killing with impunity continuing over many years. The varied conditions in these economically important countries highlight a further crucial dimension. The killing of journalists may be the most dramatic and frequently quoted "barometer of press freedom"Джон Кроуфут, "Барометры свободы", Дайджест ФЗГ, 18 февраля 2008; in English "Barometers of Freedom", Index on Censorship, Issue 1, 2008. but it is by no means the only measure. What it signifies for a particular country can only be properly gauged in the wider context of press freedom and other liberties, present (or absent) in that society. Very few journalists have been killed in China and none reported in North Korea. Other shortcomings ensure those countries occupy a lower position than Russia on any index of press freedom.
Mikhail Beketov initially survived a 2008 attack and died five years later. Immediate death is the extreme end of the spectrum of threats and intimidation.
Deaths and trials, statistics The violent deaths of journalists began in the Boris Yeltsin era (1991–1999) and continued under Vladimir Putin, president of Russia from 31 December 1999 to 7 May 2008.Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, "Press freedom", in Was passiert in Russland? F.A. Herbig: Munich, 2008 (4th edn.), pp. 81–98 (in German). When Medvedev became president, he spoke of the need to end "legal nihilism". From 2003 to 2008, there were a rising number of trials but by November 2009 there had yet to be a major breakthrough, under President Dmitri Medvedev, of either in the prosecution of pre-2008 deaths or the investigation of killings since his May 2008 inauguration. The Politkovskaya murder trial and the first arrests in the Baburova-Markelov slaying (November 2009) showed some inconclusive signs of movement.
President Y Y Y Y Y Y Y P P P P P P P P P–M M Year 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 TOTAL Murder, crossfire,terrorist act 10 12 22 18 10 10 11 17 12 23 11 12 5 13 3 5 6 200 Murder only 3 8 16 12 10 10 8 15 11 20 11 10 4 13 3 5 6 165 Trials – – – 1 1 4 4 3 1 3 3 6 2 7 5 4 2 50