Chechnya expert Elena Milachina was attacked after traveling to the Russian Caucasus republic to cover the verdict in a trial, according to Memorial.
“Elena Milachina’s fingers are broken and she loses consciousness from time to time,” the NGO said in a statement. “His whole body is covered in bruises,” the statement said. The car where the journalist and her lawyer Alexandre Nemov were was attacked by “armed men” on the road from the airport to the Chechen capital Grozny, according to the NGO.
“We beat them violently with kicks, including in the face, threatened to kill them by putting a gun to their head” and repeating “We warned you. Get out of here and don’t write anything,” Memorial said. The journalist and her lawyer, “who barely speaks and moves”, are currently “in hospital”, said the NGO.
Described as a “terrorist” by Ramzan Kadyrov
Elena Milachina has aroused the ire of the Chechen authorities, in particular by documenting the extrajudicial executions that take place there. In February 2022, she had to temporarily leave Russia, according to her diary, after threats issued by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov who called her a “terrorist”.
On Tuesday, the journalist and her lawyer went to Grozny for the statement of the verdict against Zarema Moussaeva, the wife of a former Russian federal judge of Chechen origin, Saïdi Yangoulbaïev, who became an opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov. Arrested in January 2022 in northern Russia by Chechen law enforcement, Zarema Moussaeva was forcibly brought back to the Caucasus. Accused of “fraud” and “use of force” against a police officer, this 53-year-old woman faces up to five and a half years in prison.
Novaya Gazeta is one of the few strongholds of the free press in Russia and its editor, Dmitry Muratov, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. The newspaper’s commitment, particularly in covering human rights violations in Chechnya, cost the lives of several of its collaborators, murdered, Anna Politkovskaïa being the most famous.
