Russian journalist continues on despite danger

Elena Milashina carries on the work of her slain colleagues.

Profiles in Freedom is a series of profiles on people who have exemplified or championed the First Amendment and freedom through their actions.

By Jamie Loo, First Amendment reporter

November 24, 2009

Newspaper work didn’t come naturally to Elena Milashina.

After graduating from Moscow University, Milashina said most of her friends went into television journalism but she chose newspapers. She said newspapers were a challenge for her and she wanted to stick with it.

“And I stayed there for 12 years,” she said with a laugh.

Milashina, 32, is now one of the leading investigative journalists at Novaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper in Russia. She has written extensively about government corruption and human rights abuses in a country which has limited press and speech freedoms, and where doing her job could cost Milashina her life. Milashina was honored this year with the Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism from Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and protecting human rights.

When she began her newspaper career in the mid-1990s, Milashina said Russia had a diverse media with several newspaper, television, and radio stations. That all changed in 2000 when Vladimir Putin was elected. Milashina said Putin recognized the power of the media as a weapon and took control of it, suppressing speech freedoms. She said the one radio station that is left is state run and other media are under control of oil companies which have ties to the government.

“It broke everything in Russia because when you lose freedom of speech then people lose the sources of news they really need to know to participate in the life of the country,” she said. “When you lose it (free speech), you lose the country actually.”

Milashina said even 10 years ago state controlled television stations could criticize the government but that’s not possible any more. Most people watch television for their information, she said, and the airwaves are filled with propaganda.

Milashina said she gets few reactions to her articles from politicians or the public. Russia has become more westernized, she said, and with the state propaganda many people feel things are alright in the country. People who are critical of the government are afraid to speak out because of fears that they could be beaten, jailed, or killed. Social and business organizations don’t have any influence on the government like they do in the U.S., she said.

“People in Russia have such a kind of mentality that they really don’t believe in themselves. They can’t organize actually, actually unite with themselves to be opposite to the government or criticize government or demand that something to be done from the government,” Milashina said.

As a journalist, Milashina said she generally has access to sources but not all of them are willing to give their names. There’s a lot of self-censorship among journalists because of fear.

Five journalists at Milashina’s newspaper have been killed since 2000, including her mentor Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed three years ago. Milashina said there have been no formal investigations into their deaths. Human rights activists and politicians critical of the government have also been killed. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit which promotes press freedom worldwide, has reported that a total of 17 journalists have been killed in Russia since 2000. Of the seventeen, killers have been brought to justice in only one of these cases. CPJ ranks Russia as third on its list of most life-threatening countries for the press.

This past summer, Natalia Estemirova, a leading researcher on Chechnya and activist, was abducted from her home and found dead with a gunshot wound to the head. Milashina had traveled to Chechnya without her editor’s permission and after Estemirova was killed Milashina had to admit that she had gone and returned for the funeral. Novaya Gazeta isn’t currently sending reporters to Chechnya because of the danger.

Despite the risks and on occasion going without a salary when times are tough, Milashina feels she was born to be a journalist and remains committed to using her craft to help change the country she loves. She described the journalists at Novaya Gazeta as a tight-knit team of friends who are easy to work with, understand you, and are also passionate about journalism. Her friends at the newspaper and activists fighting for government reform also keep her going. Milashina said she cannot “give up on them and leave them alone.”

“I want to get some revenge for the people who have been killed,” she said. “The only way I can get it is just to continue to work. It looks like our government is afraid of most is the truth and information. You can’t hide it.”

Milashina said she hopes the work of journalists and human rights activists will help end the cycle of fear that oppresses people. There’s nothing to be afraid of, she said, especially after all they’ve been through. Milashina said the Beslan massacre is an example of this. In 2004, armed terrorists took over a school in Beslan, North Ossetia holding teachers and students hostage. After a chaotic rescue attempt by Russian authorities, the siege ended with 334 people dead, among them 186 children. Once children are lost, what more can people be afraid of, Milashina said.

Although she doesn’t see a bright future in Russia for government reform, Milashina said it’s a more open society and she anticipates people will change. Milashina said she keeps in touch with many of her sources and some have changed their minds about things because of stories in the newspaper.

“It’s probably one of the best feelings in the world, that you can change someone and make them more free,” she said.

Violence in Chechnya

Tanya Lakshina, deputy director of the Human Rights Watch office in Moscow, said much of their office’s focus has been on Chechnya since 1994 when the first war started.

After the Soviet Union broke up, Chechnya declared itself an independent state. After two and half years of war, Lakshina said there was a short period of quasi independence but the power went to former warlords and rebel commanders. Lakshina said the province was a mess during this time with no social infrastructure and people were kidnapped for ransom. The Russians began their second military campaign in the country in 1999 to take the country again, Lakshina said. This time Russia succeeded and former rebel leader Akhmed Kadyrov, was installed as president until he was assassinated in 2004. His son, Ramzan Kadyrov, replaced him as president.

Since 1999 an estimated 5,000 people have disappeared and are assumed to be abducted, Lakshina said. She said some of the relatives of the missing turned to the European Court on Human Rights after getting no justice domestically. Although the court has delivered 180 judgments in favor of the families, she said, the Russian government simply pays the penalties ordered by the court and nothing is done to change local law enforcement practices. Lakshina said the Russian government has turned a blind eye to the killings, allowing Kadyrov to kill anyone believed to be part of the insurgency. She said in a region like Chechnya there’s not much of a difference between human rights workers and journalists.

“People continue being abducted, disappeared, tortured, and killed in Chechnya,” Lakshina said.

The violence was mostly connected to the secession issue before, she said, but now a strong jihadist Islamic insurgency has emerged in Chechnya that is trying to create a Shariah state. A Shariah state is a state that is ruled by Islamic religious law. Lakshina said several activists have already been killed this year and there could be more before 2009 is over. The time period between killings is growing shorter each time, she said, and because the perpetrators of these crimes are never caught and prosecuted it “inspires future killings.”

Elena Milashina, an investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta, said part of the problem in Russia is effective propaganda from the government, leading to apathy among the country’s citizens. Maria Lipman, a Russian journalist, wrote in an article that appeared in a Committee to Protect Journalists report on journalist killings in Russia that “the Kremlin does not seek to stifle every voice, and it does not need to: In a tightly controlled political environment, independent media have no influence on policy-making and thus present no challenge to the government. Russian political opposition has been radically marginalized and democratic checks and balances have been reduced to a façade. As long as there is no political freedom, the media function is reduced to the mere reporting of news, and the mission of public accountability cannot be accomplished.”