Russian Journalist Brutally Beaten In Response To Reporting

A reminder that working in the media elsewhere is not always as safe as it is in America: a writer for the Moscow newspaper Kommersant, Oleg Kashin was beaten into a coma as he walked back to his apartment at midnight Saturday. Particularly injured were his fingers, a sign law enforcement says indicates the attack was a response to his reporting. His editor cited “informal organizations” as possible perpetrators.

Kashin suffered a concussion, two broken legs, and several broken bones in his jaw, among other more minor injuries. He was not robbed, only beaten, and he is expected to recover, though is in intensive care. While he had not been writing about particularly sensitive comments recently, BBC reports that he had recently been reporting on “anti-Kremlin protests and extremist rallies.”

President Dmitry Medvedev, for his part, has been quick to condemn the attack, tweeting assurance that the federal government would do all it could to find the attacks and that “the criminals must be found and punished.” Kashin in one of many journalists attacked in recent times– according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 18 reporter attacks of varying degrees have gone unsolved.

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