Irina Slavina died on Friday after setting herself on hearth.
Moscow, Russia:
The editor of a Russian impartial information web site died on Friday after setting herself on hearth following a police raid in a probe concentrating on an opposition group, her web site confirmed.
The information web site Koza.Press within the industrial metropolis of Nizhny Novgorod reported that its editor-in-chief Irina Slavina had “set herself on hearth in entrance of the police headquarters”.
Investigators within the metropolis later confirmed her demise in a press release saying her physique had been discovered with “indicators of thermal burns”, whereas saying there was “no foundation” to attach her demise to police raids since she was solely a witness in a probe.
The journalist had written on Fb hours earlier than her demise: “I ask you guilty my demise on the Russian Federation.”
A video posted on social media reportedly confirmed her setting herself on hearth on a bench.
Slavina’s web site carried out investigative reporting and coated opposition to President Vladimir Putin, her associates and supporters mentioned Friday, a rarity in regional journalism which faces stress from native authorities.
She “died from her accidents,” her web site reported, saying her husband had confirmed. The positioning turned inaccessible shortly afterwards.
Her demise prompted tributes from journalists and activists together with rights advocate Pavel Chikov who wrote on the Telegram messenger that he had labored together with her twice when she was charged with disrespecting the authorities and publishing pretend information.
Slavina had written on social media on Thursday that police and federal guards burst into her flat in an early morning raid.
She mentioned they have been looking for proof of hyperlinks to Open Russia, an opposition motion funded by Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky that has been dominated undesirable by the authorities, amid allegations that it funded protests within the metropolis.
“I haven’t got something,” mentioned the journalist, including that police confiscated her notebooks and pc in addition to laptops and telephones belonging to her and her husband and daughter.
“I’ve no technique of manufacturing,” she mentioned.
Opposition chief Alexei Navalny, who’s recovering in Berlin after being poisoned in Russia with what German docs mentioned was military-grade nerve agent, described Slavina’s demise as “horrible”.
“A prison case was fabricated towards Slavina below a political cost. Yesterday, her house was searched, doorways have been lower out and computer systems confiscated,” he wrote.
“They completely drove her to suicide”.
Native information web site NN.ru reported that folks have been holding a vigil in Slavina’s reminiscence on a metropolis road, with one man holding a placard saying “the state kills”.
Source link
