Journalist Gadjiev’s case and pressure on “Chernovik” highlight persecution of independent media in Dagestan

The authorities of Dagestan apply all measures of pressure against independent media, from personal persecution to economic strangulation of editorial offices, and public interest in those problems is declining due to the aggravation of people’s material and everyday problems, journalists believe.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that colleagues of Abdulmumin Gadjiev, an editor of the Dagestani weekly newspaper “Chernovik” (Rough Draft), consider his criminal case to be political persecution and regularly hold protest actions in Makhachkala in support of him.

Weekly pickets held by Abdulmumin Gadjiev’s colleagues in Makhachkala attract less and less attention from passers-by, and that fact can be explained not only by the bad weather, believes Magdy Kamalov, a founder of the newspaper “Chernovik”. He connects the general decline in the interest in the persecution of the journalist with the fact that an average resident of Dagestan, against the backdrop of rising prices, is increasingly forced to think about own material and domestic difficulties.

Magdy Kamalov has also noted that the problem with the release of the printed version of the “Chernovik” has not yet been resolved. He has emphasized that the newspaper’s journalists are “winners of the Russian government’s award for their contribution to the fight against corruption.” According to Magdy Kamalov, it was the fight against corruption that became the source of problems for the weekly newspaper.

The demand for “Freedom to Journalism”, voiced by journalist Idris Yusupov at his recent picket, has become, in his words, even more urgent amid the political and economic pressure on the “Chernovik”.