Tag Archives: Oleg Kashin

Foreign Policy: One year on, Oleg Kashin is still waiting for justice

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One year on from the brutal beating that left Oleg Kashin with a broken hand, leg, skull, and jawbones, Foreign Policy magazine’s Julia Ioffe talks to the Moscow-based journalist about the failure of the authorities to bring anyone to justice.

Given the volume of the outcry and the apparent sincerity and generosity of the official response, there was, one year ago, some faint reason to hope that this case might be solved. Kashin, after all, was a mainstream, well-connected figure. He was no Anna Politkovskaya, killed on Putin’s birthday in 2006, whose work was so obviously dangerous (Kashin compared her to a suicide bomber). Nor was he like the other journalists and human rights activists whose work in the Caucasus has brought Caucasus-style revenge on their heads.

He was no Paul Klebnikov, gunned down in 2004, or Mikhail Beketov, assaulted and maimed in November 2008, who went against powerful financial interests. Kashin wrote about youth movements. Yet despite the seeming harmlessness of his beat, despite his luck that night, despite the big names and big money that immediately kicked into action, despite the wide shock and wide media coverage — even state news lead with his beating the next day — despite all these advantages that Politkovskaya and Beketov and Klebnikov and Chervochkin and dozens like them didn’t have, in the year since the first photographers arrived to take pictures of the blood-spattered ground in Kashin’s courtyard, Kashin’s case has gone cold, exactly like theirs.

Read the full article here.

Yesterday was the first Day to End Impunity, to mark the second anniversary of the “Maguindanao Massacre” in the Philippines.

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Index on Censorship: Russian journalist defeats libel claim

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A Russian journalist, who was placed into an induced coma after being beaten in Moscow last year, has defeated a libel claim against him after speculating on the identity of his attackers, according to Index on Censorship.

Kommersant’s political correspondent Oleg Kashin spent five days in a coma after he was attacked outside his apartment in November.

According to Index, a Moscow court ruled in favour of Kashin as it could not be proven that accusations were made as factual statements.

The attack itself sparked an open letter from 26 media outlets and journalists calling on the president to ensure greater protections for journalists, while the Committee to Protect Journalists‘ executive director also gave a statement condemning the attack and calling for action.

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CPJ and Russian media outlets challenge ‘climate of impunity’ after latest attack

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Russian media outlets and the Committee to Protect Journalists have called on President Medvedev to deal with unsolved crimes against the media, following an attack on reporter Oleg Kashin this weekend which led to him being placed into an induced coma.

According to a report by AFP, 26 reporters and media outlets, as well as hundreds of others, have signed an open letter demanding protection for journalists’ rights.

“By demanding the protection of reports, what we are talking about is not only our own trade,” the letter said. “One must also protect the rights of our readers. The rights of reporters to fulfill their obligation in a normal fashion and not worry about their lives — this is the right of society to speak and be heard.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists has also called on the government to act. In a statement, CPJ executive director Joel Simon said:

We are outraged by the attack on Kommersant reporter Oleg Kashin. While it is important that President Medvedev has called for the perpetrators to be ‘found and punished,’ we also believe that the government itself has considerable responsibility. By failing to prosecute those who have carried out crimes against journalists in the past – including 19 murders committed in the Putin era – the Russian government has created a climate of impunity. Government statements and expressions of sympathy are simply not sufficient. Arrests, prosecutions and convictions are what are urgently needed.