Civil War in Khimki: Another Savage Attack on a Freelance Journalist
A well-known public figure and a member of the editorial board of Grazhdanskoe Soglasie (Russian for “civil accord”), the only opposition newspaper of the urban district of Khimski, V.Kuzmin was beaten savagely outside his home on March 21, 2011. Mr Kuzmin has been hospitalized with traumatic brain injury, broken arms and fingers.
It was not the first assassination attempt against a staff member of Grazhdanskoe Soglasie - two years ago in Marсh 2009 a similar assassination attempt was carried out successfully and took the life of Sergey Protazanov, the layout designer for the newspaper. These assassination attempts against civil activists in Khimki have exactly the same modus operandi. The criminals had been lying in wait outside the victims’ homes then the victims were either beaten to death (like Mr. Protazanov) or beaten and badly mutilated (like Mr. Beketov and Mr. Fetisov). In the aftermath, the law enforcement authorities have failed to hunt down those guilty in the crimes and the crimes still remain unsolved. Some progress seems to be made in the investigation of the case of Mr. Fetisov, but it’s too early to hope that the crime will be ultimately solved.
There were three assassination attempts against the former editor-in-chief of Grazhdanskoe Soglasie A. Yurov who died on December 3rd, 2010. One of the assassination attempts left him with ten stab wounds and, naturally, those responsible for the crimes have never been found and the crimes remain unsolved.
Mr. Protazanov was killed while preparing a newspaper issue about the violations that marred the “elections” that were won by Mr.Strelchenko, the incumbent head of the urban district of Khimki. The assassination attempt against Mr Kuzmin was carried out while the newspaper staff was preparing an issue that shed light on the corrupt practices and violations committed in the preparation of the construction of the toll expressway through Khimkinski forest.
Presumably, the resurgence of violence against civil activists in Khimki (and this violence manifests not only in assassination attempts but also in the threats to kidnap the children of the leaders of the Khimski Forest Protection Movement and the arm-twisting tactics adopted by the ‘law enforcement authorities’ against the organizations that employ civil activists, death threats against the activist and sinister shadowing ) was brought about by the decision made by the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev to continue the construction of the expressway along the route that had been previously proposed by the government.
The decision proved that corruption and crimes against civil activists are not punished in this country. In fact, the crime took the upper hand in the struggle for Khimkinski forest (at least at this point in history) and this was confirmed by the actions of the highest-ranking officials.
Translated by Alina Dashkevich