Watchdog group worried over editor murder
The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities to thoroughly investigate the murder of Shafig Amrakhov, editor of the news agaency RIA 51 in Murmansk.
Shafig Amrakhov died in hospital on January 5 after one unidentified assailant shot him in the head several times near the elevator in his apartment block in Murmansk on the late evening December 30 last year.
- We are deeply saddened by the death of Shafig Amrakhov and angered at yet another violent attack on a Russian journalist, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said in a press release published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
- We call on Murmansk authorities to thoroughly investigate the killing, including a possible connection to Amrakhov’s journalism, Ognianova said.
Murmansk police have opened a criminal case into the incident and are considering several motives for the attack, including Amrakhov’s journalism. They not commented on the investigation. RIA 51 reports news from and about the Murmansk region.
According to the Moscow-based Glasnost Defense Foundation, this was not the first attack against Amrakhov. In 1997, an unknown assailant attacked the journalist in the entrance of his apartment building and hit him on the head with a blunt object; he suffered a concussion, the foundation reported. The attacker was never found.
In February 2008, Amrakhov publicly protested the authorities’ decision to deny him accreditation for then-President Vladimir Putin’s last press conference as head of state. In his public letter—carried by local media—Amrakhov also criticized the economic policy of Murmansk Governor Yuri Yevdokimov.
