Press freedom groups around the world have condemned the brutal attack on Russian journalist Elena Milashina, who was beaten by unknown assailants in the Chechen capital of Grozny on July 4. Milashina, a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, was in town to report on Chechnya’s ongoing attacks on LGBTQ people when she was assaulted along with lawyer Alexander Nemov. The attackers broke her fingers, shaved her head and doused her in liquid iodine, which leaves long-lasting stains on a person’s skin. For more, we speak with human rights monitor Anna Dobrovolskaya, the former executive director of Memorial Human Rights Center before the rights group was shut down by the Russian government in late 2021. “It’s a very clear signal that next time it will be even more brutal than that,” Dobrovolskaya says of the attack.
This post was originally published on Democracy Now!.
