Under Siege   

SOME OF THE INCIDENTS involving the beleaguered Russian news media:

April 4, 2001--Gazprom, a state-owned gas company, takes over NTV, Russia's only independent television network. It had been called "one of the most independent and authoritative news sources in Russia."

September 21, 2000--Iskandr Khatloni, a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty working on a story about Russian human-rights violations in Chechnya, is killed with an ax at his apartment.

July 27, 2000--Irina Grebneva, editor of the opposition weekly Arsenyevskiye Vesti, is arrested and sentenced to five days in prison on charges of hooliganism. Her paper had published telephone transcripts linking top officials in Russia's Far East to vote rigging.

July 26, 2000--Sergei Novikov, director of Smolensk's only independent radio station, Vesna, is shot four times and killed at his apartment. Three days earlier, Novikov had appeared on television, discussing alleged corruption of state officials.

June 13, 2000--Vladimir Gusinsky, founder of NTV, is arrested and charged with fraud. NTV had repeatedly criticized the Putin government.

May 12, 2000--Igor Domnikov, a reporter and special-projects editor at Novaya Gazeta, is attacked with a hammer at his apartment. He died July 16 after two months in a coma.

May 11, 2000--Up to 40 investigators and police commandos, some armed and wearing camouflage uniforms and ski masks, raid the Moscow offices of Media-Most, which includes NTV. The government called the raid an investigation of economic crimes.

January 28, 2000--The Russian government acknowledges that it is holding Andrei Babitsky, a veteran Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reporter covering the Chechen war.

June 29, 1999--Yuri Stepanov, a correspondent for Radio Lemma in Vladivostok, is attacked by three men near his apartment, suffering three broken ribs and a cracked skull. Stepanov had aired a third interview implicating the regional governor in corrupt practices. This was the first in a string of attacks and harassment against Radio Lemma.

May 27, 1999--Radio Titan, the only independent station in Bashkortostan, is shut down, and news director Altaf Galeyev is arrested on charges of hooliganism and defamation. Radio Titan had broadcast interviews with opposition candidates and quoted from newspapers alleging government corruption.

June 7, 1998--Larisa Yudina, editor of the opposition Sovietskaya Kalmykia Segodnya newspaper, disappears. Yudina, who was investigating allegations of corrupt business practices by regional officials, was found dead the next day, with multiple stab wounds and a fractured skull.

Source: The Committee to Protect Journalists