Source: hro.org (info), 17/11/10

· Freedom of Speech · Moscow Region and Moscow City · Protest Campaigns

The European Union condemns the brutal attacks on Russian journalist Oleg Kashin of Kommersant on 6 November 2010, and on the activist for the preservation of the Khimki forest Konstantin Fetisov on 4 November 2010, according to a statement issued by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, Interfax reports.

“The attacks against Mr Kashin and Mr. Fetisov are the most recent cases in a highly worrying trend of violence, intimidation and insecurity faced by journalists, bloggers and activists in the Russian Federation,” Interfax quotes the statement.

“The EU urges the Russian authorities to thoroughly and effectively investigate these as well as other cases of aggression against journalists and human rights defenders, to do everything in their power to ensure their protection, and to bring those responsible to justice,” Kasparov.ru reports.

On 4 November in Khimki unidentified persons attacked Konstantin Fetisov, an activist of the Movement to Preserve Khimki Forest. The ecologist’s skull was fractured with a bat.

On the night of 6 November two unidentified persons assaulted and beat Oleg Kashin, a journalist working for the Kommersant newspaper near his apartment building on Pyatnitskaya Street. As a result the journalist suffered concussion, a traumatic tear of the phalanx of a finger, a broken shin, and also broken upper and lower jaws.