NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s independent media cite intimidation as the new censorship; Being a journalist has never been easy in Russia. Three hundred reporters have been killed since the Soviet Union collapsed. But a new climate of fear is forcing liberal opposition journalists to flee the country.” – Christian Science Monitor/ Fred Weir

“Russia’s dwindling band of liberal-minded opposition journalists is shrinking fast in the face of a spate of terror attacks. The Kremlin insists it has nothing to do with the violence. But critics say the government has stoked a hostile atmosphere in the country by demonizing liberal reporters as traitors. … The latest victim was Tatiana Felgenhauer, a Kremlin critic with a popular radio program on Ekho Moskvy. … stabbed in the neck last week at the station’s studio …. * * * [Yulia] Latynina wrote … recently that she had never expected to flee Russia, even during the worst times – during the 1990s and early Putin years – when large numbers of journalists were being murdered. But she said the atmosphere had recently grown more insidious and more unpredictable as a flailing Kremlin outsourced violence and intimidation to murderous thugs. …”

Click here for: “Russia’s independent media cite intimidation as the new censorship; Being a journalist has never been easy in Russia. Three hundred reporters have been killed since the Soviet Union collapsed. But a new climate of fear is forcing liberal opposition journalists to flee the country.” – Christian Science Monitor/ Fred Weir