Last week, a journalist from the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, Elena Milashina, and human rights lawyer Alexander Nemov were assaulted while on their way to court in Grozny, Chechnya’s regional capital.
Their car was stopped by armed assailants, who have not yet been identified, who violently attacked and threatened to kill them. Milashina sustained a brain injury and multiple fractures, while Nemov was stabbed in the leg.
Milashina, who previously reported on the persecutions of LGBTIQ people in Chechnya, and Nemov had been travelling to attend the sentencing of 53-year-old Zarema Musayeva, the mother of two prominent Chechen dissidents, Abubakar and Ibragim Yangulbaev.
