The owner of www.ingushetiya.ru, a news portal critical of Ingushetiya's Kremlin-backed regime, has been shot and killed on Saturday.
Magomed Yevloyev, a vocal critic of police treatment of civilians in the troubled region, was arrested at Nazran airport in southern Russia. He was subsequently found on the side of the road with a gunshot wound to the head. He succumb to his wounds in a hospital later that day.
Russian authorities claim they will open an investigation. A spokesman for the prosecutor general's office claims an incident occurred while police were trying to transfer Yevloyev to an Interior Ministry Office. "M. Yevloyev received a gunshot wound to the temple area," said the spokesman, but he failed to mention the fact that the slain journalist was left in a ditch following the "incident".
Reporters Without Borders are calling on the international community to insist on a complete investigation, saying that Yevloyev's death must not go unpunished.
Since 1992, a total of 47 journalists were killed in Russia, 13 of whom died during Putin's reign in unsolved contract hits.
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