Deputy says Russian police kill Web site owner

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: NYT/AP

MOSCOW (AP) -- The owner of an independent Web site critical of authorities was shot and killed Sunday by police in a volatile province in southern Russia, his colleague said.

Police arrested Ingushetiya.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev on Sunday, taking him off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetia province near Chechnya, said the site's deputy editor, Ruslan Khautiyev.

Police whisked Yevloyev away in a car and later dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in the head, Khautiyev said. He said Yevloyev died in a hospital shortly afterward.

In Moscow, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said in a statement that Yevloyev was detained by police and died in an ''incident'' while being taken to police headquarters for an interrogation. Markin did not elaborate, saying that a check to clarify the circumstances of Yevloyev's death had begun. The committee is under the Prosecutor General's office.

Yevloyev has angered regional authorities with bold criticism of police treatment of civilians in the region. A court in June ordered him to shut his site on charges of spreading ''extremist'' statements, but it reappeared under a different name....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Web-Site-Owner-Killed.html

[WriteDown]

1. He obviously was a Georgian spy and needed.....

to be dealt with. :sarcasm:

[Demeter]

2. We Ought to Provide Security For Our Moderators

Seeing as how W can't wait to try out new ways to quash the opposition.

[guyton]

3. We blew it

End of the cold war, but we ignored our newly found potential friends and now they're spiraling down into fascism. It's a long road back up.

The corruption and aggression in Russian isn't "our fault" of course, but I sure didn't see much help for them when they needed it and now our leverage with them now is zero. And our example (um, Iraq) is sickening.

[panzerfaust]

4. Ingushetia website owner killed by police

Source: Guardian UK

An opposition internet news site owner in Russia's troubled Ingushetia region was fatally shot yesterday after being detained by police. Magomed Yevloyev was one of the most high-profile journalists to be killed in Russia since the investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead near her Moscow apartment in 2006, provoking condemnation of Russia's record on media freedom...

...said police met Yevloyev at the steps of an aircraft after he flew into Ingushetia's airport and drove him away in a Volga car. "As they drove he was shot in the temple ... They threw him out of the car near the hospital," Kaloi Akhilgov told Reuters by telephone ...

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/01/russia1

---

The eyes of Boris. Soon coming to America

[HCE SuiGeneris]

5. Nothing to see here, move along...

:wow:

[Zero Division]

6. I'm starting to believe that the Bush admin. is secretly jealous

of everything the Russian govt. gets away with. I can't believe how many DUers seem to think that Putin's govt. is some kind human rights/international law champion. I'm going to laugh pretty hard if anyone actually dares to call news from The Guardian, "right wing propaganda". The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

[natrat]

9. who knows maybe the russian government has some honesty to it, anyway russians like it

[Zero Division]

10. I don't trust the Russian govt., not because they oppose U.S. policy, but

because they're ultra-nationalists, just like the neo-cons in our country.

[amyrose2712]

7. I'm not sure what to make of Russia...

but it doesn't look good. Because of what I have read, my thoughts were that Russia was protecting South Ossetia, because the people there were being slaughtered. Now I see that there was much more to it then I previously thought. I admit I know very little of the subject but I am now watching closely.

[Danger Mouse]

8. WTF? Coming soon to America...One-stop shopping for elimination of opposition!

[cobalt1999]

11. What did they expect when their government is nothing but ex-KGB officers

That's their mindset.

[Strelnikov_]

12. Mourners protest Russian reporter's death

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/09/01/russia.funeral.ap/index.html

More than 1,000 angry mourners turned the funeral for a journalist critical of Russia's government into a demonstration Monday, accusing police of lying when they said he was accidentally shot by an officer.

Magomed Yevloyev died Sunday after a police car picked him up from an airport in Ingushetia province in Russia's volatile North Caucasus and then dumped him on the road with a gunshot wound in his head.

Up to 1,200 people turned out for his funeral, said rights activist Magomed Mutsolgov, who was among the crowd. They lined up to pay their last respects to Yevloyev. The journalist's shrouded body was laid out on a large carpet, a blue headband hiding his wound.

[reorg]

13. Interesting background article on the situation in Ingushetia

Ingushetia is the smallest Republic in Russia, located between Chechnya and North Ossetia, with less than half a million inhabitants. Hundreds of thousands of refugees and the ruthless activities of Chechen terrorists have put enormous strain on the region. The regional administration and police forces seem to be using tactics similar to those of the so-called "War on Terror" of Anglo-American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan: extrajudicial detentions of "suspects", torture, killings ... Who can stop the madness?

War comes to Ingushetia
Tanya Lokshina, 2 - 07 - 2008
Tanya Lokshina is chair of the NGO Demos, and a member of Human Rights Watch

The border of Chechnya and Ingushetia used to mark the line between war and peace. Now the shootings, torture and disappearances have begun.

It used to be peaceful here. The border of Chechnya and Ingushetia marked the line between war and peace. Crossing this line, returning from war to peace, you sighed every time: "Now everything will be fine. It's safe here..." Of course, there's poverty, dirt, corruption, but people don't get killed, shot or kidnapped here. There it's part of everyday life

When did this all change? It happened gradually. The realities which only used to exist "across the border", in Chechnya, seeped slowly into Ingushetia. The kidnappings began in 2002, though it's true that at first the Ingush themselves were not affected - only the Chechen refugees. At the time, there were 150,000 of them in Ingushetia, equal to around half the population of this small republic. Militants from Chechnya began coming at night. They broke into the homes of refugees, grabbed their victims, put them into vehicles and drove them back to Chechnya. Those kidnapped usually disappeared without trace. Numbers increased and soon they started taking Ingush as well, who also "disappeared". And they were tortured too. But until June 2004 this was a rare occurrence...

That "black June" was the turning point - war came into Ingushetia.

On the stifling summer night of 21-22 June, Shamil Basaev appeared in Nazran with a force several hundred strong. For a few hours they held the republic. They killed dozens of policemen and left the local law-enforcement agencies without leadership. It was an easy operation for them. Basaev's men set up checkpoints on the roads. Drivers stopped their cars, when they saw armed soldiers in camouflage, thinking it was a special services operation. Law-enforcement employees showed their ID so they could pass unhindered. But by then it was too late. Men in uniform or with official IDs were shot on the spot. The militants captured a military warehouse, loaded a heap of weapons into their cars, and left Nazran and Karabulak late at night, without suffering any losses.

Read more