I’m not sure how many people in the States or elsewhere around the world, actually realize the importance of this story, but its significance bears repeating. Over the weekend a Russian blogger and webmaster was shot in the head while in police custody. As for most people who get shot in the temple with a gun, he died. The Russian police in the southern city of Ingushetia, acknowledged that there was an incident and initial reports mentioned a scuffle of sorts. How an unarmed man gets shot in the head in the backseat in a scuffle is a bit hard to fathom.
Most news organizations mentioned that Magomed Yevloyev ran the website ingushetiya.ru, that he was an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and Putin, and even mentioned that he was a journalist. While there is no excuse in any country for a journalist to die at the hands of the police (a gunshot wound to the “temple area” is not exactly a mistake), this is more significant than just that. Journalists critical of the Kremlin have died before (see this New York Times article for more background information), but this is the first time we can recall where a blogger has been targeted. Journalists are generally people who write in printed material, perhaps augmenting that online. However, for someone who writes solely online to get knocked off, this is a big step in the wrong direction for the Putinites.
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[...] the bloggers never see the inside of a courtroom, or even the inside of a jail cell, as with this Russian blogger we reported on recently. The cops just shot him in the head while handcuffed in the back of the police car. Considering the [...]
[...] out? There are examples of this out there for sure. In Russian it doesn’t matter how big or small your backing is, but in African countries or other locales where the central government isn’t [...]
[...] You can read more from the local paper here. All I have to say is that at least they don’t kill bloggers here, like they do in Russia. [...]
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