[lbo-talk] Reporter's death fuels fear for Russia media freedom

[Michael Pugliese]

http://www.google.com/search?q=press+freedom+yeltsin
http://www.cpj.org/attacks96/sreports/russia.html
The Committee to Protect Journalists has confirmed that since 1994, at
least 13 journalists have been assassinated in the Russian Federation,
and 8 are currently missing. Some of those who have disappeared are
presumed dead, including American free-lance photojournalist Andrew
Shumack, last seen in Grozny in July 1995. These numbers are
comparable to the journalists' death toll under the world's worst
regimes. It seems counterintuitive that the man whom the Russian press
supported as the guardian of its freedoms could be in any way
responsible for this phenomenon. Yet by his government's inaction in
pursuing justice for the murders, and his failure to galvanize
law-enforcement agencies to protect journalists from coercion, Yeltsin
has effectively signaled that enemies of the press may act-even
kill-with impunity.

   And before anyone says the CPJ doesn't aim at the USG,

 SPECIAL REPORT: The United States
Subverting Journalism: Reporters and the CIA
by Kate Houghton
http://www.cpj.org/attacks96/index.html