Two reporters shot dead in Russsia

Follow the media reports on the apparent murder of two Russian journalists

Ilyas Shurpaev, a 32-year-old reporter for Russian State TV Channel One, was found dead; stabbed and strangled in his Moscow apartment early Friday morning (March 21). He had recently moved to Moscow from Dagestan where he had worked as Channel One’s North Caucasus reporter

and

Hours later, Dagestan State Radio and TV Chairman Gadzhi (Gaji) Abashilov was machine-gunned near a shopping mall in the Dagestan capital Makhachkala. Abashilov, 58 years old, hosted a popular television program and had previously worked for a local newspaper.

As reported previously on this blog,Russia is not the best place to be a journalist,especially if you are critical of government policy.

The authorities are denying a link between the two putting the murders down to profesional activities but hours before his murder,Shurpaev had written on his blog

that his name had appeared on a blacklist of journalists barred from publishing in a Dagestani newspaper. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,“ he wrote in last blog entry, Thursday afternoon (March 20). “Now I'm a dissident!”

and reporting on the murders

Russia Today reiterated troubles at “a popular Dagestani newspaper,” saying, “Journalists said they were being forced to produce negative reports about Dagestan’s government and president.”

Reporters without borders has condemned the killing

“We urge the authorities to carry out a thorough investigation and to consider all hypotheses, including the possibility that it was linked to his work as a journalist, which is such a risky profession in Russia.”