Participants in conference in Warsaw state absence of journalist's investigation into Estemirova's murder

On March 4-6, Warsaw hosted a conference of journalists from different countries, who work in the genre of investigative journalism. Among other things they discussed the situation in Northern Caucasus, including the murder of human rights advocate Natalia Estemirova committed in 2009.

On March 5, the conference dealt with the topics: "How to work with sources of information and how to protect them?" and "Crisis of investigative journalism - how to overcome it?"

On March 6, the participants discussed the situation with the investigative journalism in their countries and defined topics for joint international investigations.

The conference raised the topic of actual absence of independent journalist's investigations even of such resonant cases like Natalia Estemirova's murder.

According to Polish journalist Pawel Reszka, one of the leaders of the conference, for the Russian journalistic community investigation into the deaths of their colleagues should be a matter of honour, while the absence of journalists' investigations of such tragedies indicates some abnormal situation in the genre of investigative journalism in Russia and in Russian mass media in general.

The meeting was organized by the "Reporters' Foundation" created by Polish journalists and financially supported by the Soros Foundation.