An attack on the correspondent of Radio Liberty in Mari El is, obviously, connected with the professional occupation

10.01.05

In the evening January 7 about 20 p.m. in one of the main streets of Mari capital the correspondent of Radio Liberty in Mari El Elena Rogacheva was beaten.

According to the journalist, three youngsters attacked her and she did not even manage to memorize their faces. One of the attackers knocked her down, two others silently started to beat their victim. “One of the blows got into the face,” told Elena. “After that I stopped to understand what was going on, and the attackers disappeared". Passers-by helped the girl to come round and offered her help according to their possibilities.

It remains an enigma what an aim the attackers pursued. In Elena Rogacheva’s opinion, it was neither robbery nor hooliganism: the youngsters were not interested in the lining of the handbag and pockets of the journalist. Most probably, their interest came to one thing – to frighten their victim because in the end she heard something like “if you create a disturbance – we will kill you”. Rogacheva’s colleagues like she herself do not exclude that the cause of the attack was either her professional occupation or occupation of her husband who is an employee of the famous in the republic oppositional newspaper “Dobrye Sosedi". According to the journalists of the republic, in favour of the professional version are Elena’s reports that took place on the air of  Radio Liberty and quite often there was present criticism towards the republican officials including the president of Mari El Leonid Markelov. Before that, Elena was also repeatedly exposed to prosecution inspired by the important people of Mari El for her reports.

We remind that this is not the first time in Mari El when the journalists of non-state mass media were exposed to the criminal harm. Last year in the republic attacks on the journalist Vitaliy Ignatov were committed – the attackers beat him and then insistently recommended him to keep silent about the attack. The editor of the newspaper "Vo!" Mark Aron was exposed to the attack by the president’s guard. The editor-in-chief of the weekly “Yoshkar-Ola” Vitaliy Lezhanin, a journalist Olga Shingareeva, employees of the newspapers “Dobrye Sosedi” and “Molodjezhnyi Kurjer" repeatedly got the menaces of bodily harm. Prosecutor's office and Ministry of Internal Affairs reacted to the corresponding claims of employees of mass media with the formal replies, and resorts of the editorial staff of weekly “Yoshkar-Ola” to different instances, for example, to ambassador of the president in Privolzhsky federal district Sergei Kirienko or to the head of Duma committee of information policy Valeriy Komissarov (deputy of “Edinoros” of the State Duma of the Russian Federation from Mari El) turned to be futile despite the fact that more than ten newspapers with the outlooks different from the points of view of the local government are forced to be printed outside the republic.

The source: Vlasti.net