Thank you for joining CPJ in this appeal. Please sign it and send it by E-mail (europe@cpj.org) or fax (212-465-9568) to Catherine Fitzpatrick, CPJ's program coordinator for Central Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union.

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His Excellency Boris Yeltsin
President of the Russian Federation
Moscow, Russia
Fax: (7095) 206-0033

Your Excellency:

I am writing to express my alarm at the recent rash of murders of journalists covering the war in Chechnya. At least five have been assassinated since the conflict began, three of them in 1996 alone. One appalling example is the execution-style killing of Obshchaya Gazeta correspondent Nadezhda Chaikova, who was killed in Gekhi, about 20 kilometers outside of the Chechen capital of Grozny. I join the Committee to Protect Journalists in their call for you to order a thorough investigation into Chaikova's assassination and to bring to justice those responsible.

Chaikova, who was on assignment since March 6 in the Chechen Republic, was last seen by colleagues in Sernovodsk on March 19 and 20. Reporters who went in search of her in early April found photographs at the Urus-Martanovsky District prosecutor's office showing that she had been beaten, blindfolded, forced into a kneeling position and shot in the back of the head. The prosecutor explained that her body had been discovered on the outskirts of Gekhi near a sewage pipe but that a forensic exam indicated that she had been murdered elsewhere and her body dumped outside the village.

Chaikova, who had frequently traveled to Chechnya and the surrounding regions, was known for her hard-hitting coverage of the war and issues such as Russian authorities' use of special "filtration" prison camps to control the population.

I also call on you to prosecute those responsible for the murders of four other journalists killed covering the war in Chechnya:

• Nina Yefimova, a 25-year-old reporter for the Russian-language Chechen newspaper Vozrozhdeniye [Revival] who resided in the breakaway republic, was found dead on May 9, 1996, from a pistol shot to the back of the head. According to ITAR-TASS, both Nina and her mother, who was also murdered, were abducted from their apartment on the outskirts of Grozny on the night of May 8. Journalists in Grozny and Moscow believe that Yefimova's murder was related to stories she had published on crime in Chechnya. On May 10, the deputy interior minister of Chechnya told the radio station Ekho Moskvy that an investigation was opened and that suspects had been identified, but no further statements have been made.

• On March 11, 1996, Viktor Pimenov, a cameraman for Vaynakh, the national Chechen television station controlled by the pro-Moscow government, was killed in Grozny. ITAR-TASS reported that day that "Pimenov was shot in the back by a sniper hiding on the roof of a 16-floor building on Lenin Street." He was killed while filming the aftermath of the Chechen insurgents' raid on Grozny from March 6 to March 9, during which time Russian military officials kept all journalists out of the city.

• On June 17, 1995, Natalya Alyakina, a free-lance correspondent of dual Russian-German citizenship who worked for the German radio news service RUFA and the weekly magazine Focus, was shot dead by a Russian soldier just minutes after being waved past a Russian checkpoint outside the city of Budyonnovsk at the height of the hostage crisis. Her driver was seriously injured. Sergei Fedotov, the soldier who fired the shot, claimed it was an accident, but circumstances suggest that it was not, and serious blunders were made in the official re-enactment of the crime during the investigation. The military court in Stavropol announced that the trial would open in May, but the hearing was cancelled when some of the state's witnesses failed to appear. The next session has been postponed until after the June 16 elections.

• Farkhad Kerimov, a cameraman with Associated Press TV was shot dead in Chechnya. He was reported missing on May 27, 1995, and his body was found on May 29.

Thirdly, I urge you to order complete investigations into the disappearances in Chechnya of four journalists:

• Maxim Shabalin, the assistant political editor of the St. Petersburg daily Nevskoye Vremya, and Felix Titov, a photographer for the paper, have been missing in Chechnya for more than a year. They left Nazran on Feb. 27, 1995, for their sixth trip to the breakaway republic since the fighting began. According to Nevskoye Vremya's editor in chief, the journalists were due back on March 4. But they have not been heard from since and are feared dead. Colleagues at Nevskoye Vremya heard word in September that the bodies of two journalists were found in February in the Achoy region of the republic. However, no documents or photographs were located to confirm the identities of the bodies.

• Nevskoye Vremya's Sergei Ivanov traveled to Chechnya on June 16, 1995, to look for Shabalin and Titov. He has not been heard from since.

• Andrew Shumack, an American free-lance journalist from Pennsylvania, was last seen on July 28, 1995, when he left Grozny and headed toward the surrounding mountainous area. The St. Petersburg Press, an English-language newspaper, had provided Shumack with a letter of introduction on July 20 to help him obtain press credentials. In return, Shumack was to provide them with photographs and stories for three months. He is feared dead because no one from the newspaper has heard from him since, and U.S. Embassy officials have not been able to locate him despite repeated trips to the region.

And lastly, I join CPJ in their call for the release from jail of two Turkish journalists:

• Ali Tekin, managing editor of the Turkish Islamic weekly Selam, and Talip Ozcelik, a reporter with the weekly, were arrested on Nov. 2, 1995, while trying to enter Chechnya. Russian authorities told their colleagues at Selam that they are being held for "illegal entry." The pair was first held in Derbent and are now believed to be detained in Makhachkala, capital of Dagestan. According to the Anatolia News Agency, on April 10, 1996, a court in Dagestan sentenced the two men under Article 83 of the Russian Penal Code to three years in prison--the maximum sentence permitted under the law--for illegal border-crossing.

In order for a free press to survive in Russia, journalists must be allowed to travel and report freely without fear for their safety or fear of arbitrary jailing. I respectfully request that you take all measures to ensure that security.

Thank you for your attention. I welcome your comments and reply.

Sincerely,

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