She keeps falling unconscious: beaten journalist shows her injuries

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Her head is bald, her fingers are broken, and her whole body is covered in bruises and bruises: investigative journalist Elena Milashina was severely mauled by ten to fifteen attackers on Tuesday in Chechnya — and eventually doused with green dye.

Meanwhile, she is in a hospital in Moscow. “Their condition is downright difficult,” Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, told AFP news agency on Wednesday. Milashina herself reported in an interview that ten to fifteen attackers beat her with plastic pipes.

“It Really Hurt”

The 45-year-old investigative journalist said the tubes used by the attackers were routinely used by authorities to mistreat detainees in Chechnya. “It’s a powerful weapon,” she said. “It really hurt.”

Milashina has been reporting on human rights violations in Chechnya for years. She was attacked Tuesday morning along with lawyer Alexander Nemov, who suffered a stab wound. In the new video, the journalist suggested the attack was related to her work with Nemov. She heard the attackers tell the lawyer that he was defending “too many people”.

Attackers wanted access to their smartphone

According to editor-in-chief Muratov, the attackers beat Milashina, breaking her fingers and demanding access to her smartphone. The Russian human rights organization Memorial announced on Tuesday that Milashina had bruises “all over her body” in addition to the broken fingers and temporarily lost consciousness. According to human rights organization Human Rights Watch, the attackers shaved Milashina’s hair and doused her with green dye.

Before being transferred to Moscow, the investigative journalist was first treated in a hospital in the Chechen capital Grozny and then in neighboring North Ossetia. In a first video from the hospital, Milashina had already described the incident: “They threw the taxi driver out, jumped in the car, pushed our heads down, tied my hands (…) and put a gun to our heads.”

Kadyrov had threatened her before

A day after the attack on a lawyer and a well-known journalist in Chechnya, the Russian investigative authorities opened criminal proceedings. The Russian Commission of Inquiry announced on its Telegram channel on Wednesday that it is conducting an investigation into minor and moderate bodily injury.

Milashina had already received death threats in 2020 from Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov after she reported critically on the brutal treatment of the population in the corona pandemic.

Kadyrov assured Tuesday that he had instructed the responsible authorities “to do everything possible to identify the attackers”. Chechen Information Minister Akhmed Dudayev blamed “Western intelligence services” for the attack without providing any evidence. At the same time, he accused Milashina of “offending the Chechen security authorities for years.”

Wanted to report on the process

The award-winning investigative journalist has reported for years on serious human rights violations in Chechnya, such as extrajudicial killings, for “Novaya Gazeta”. In February 2022, according to her newspaper, she briefly left Russia after threats from Kadyrov, who described her as a “terrorist”.

On Tuesday, Milashina traveled to Chechnya again to report from the regional capital Grozny on the outcome of a sensational trial against Zarema Musayeva. She is married to an opponent of Kadyrov and the mother of three exiled Kadyrov critics.

Six journalists and employees have been murdered since 2000 at Novaya Gazeta, whose publisher Muratov received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, including investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. (neo/AFP/SDA)

Source: Blick