President Jacques Maire (MP, France) and Bureau member Michael Georg Link (MP, Germany) issued a statement condemning death threats against Elena Milashina, a Russian journalist and the recipient of the Franco-German human rights prize in 2017.
“On behalf of the ALDE group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, we would like to express our profound indignation and deepest concern with yet another death threat addressed to prominent Russian investigative journalist Elena Milashina on 13 April 2020. It is not the first time that her critical articles on the situation in the Russian North Caucasus, and particularly in Chechnya, provoke attacks against her and Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper she works for. This time public threats come from the highest circles of local authorities, including the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, following Elena’s article on the Covid-19 situation in Chechnya.
We are particularly concerned that no adequate action to protect Elena Milashina and to bring the authors of the threats to justice have been taken, all the more considering that the threats are coming from a representative of public authorities.
We are also worried to see that the Covid-19 pandemic is being used to silence critical voices and curtail media freedom.
We therefore call on Russian authorities to conduct proper investigation into the threats against the journalist and guarantee her safety and freedom to do her work.
Elena Milashina is a long-standing partner of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the ALDE group. Wee renew our support to Elena and we will continue to closely follow the situation.”