It has been a month since the day of assault and battery in Yasny Proezd (a street in Moscow) in a hall of residence that is claimed to become a premise by Moscow branch of Federal Penal Service Department. During the assault made by people in mufti who showed the service certificates of the ministry of justice and in the presence of the head of ZhKO of Penal service department Mr. Gerbach, a few people were beaten up, one of them being the Novaya Gazeta correspondent Rostislav Bogushevsky. He got a craniocerebral trauma with the brain concussion and temporary partial loss of sight being a consequence.       

Same day – 24 June – all the victims of bashing, done by law enforcement officers, applied to traumatology center and filed an official complaint with a local police station. Our correspondent was interrogated by a district police officer and then his case was passed to the Investigative department at Babushkinskaya inter-district prosecutor’s office. There he was interrogated too. Since then the investigative bodies has had no questions, and yet our employee is not even recognized to be a victim.   

We managed to learn from other bashed up persons that the criminal case has been finally started on the count of “beating made out of hooligan motives by unknown persons”. At the time being, all the materials have been required for consideration by the prosecutor of Babushkinsky district.     

The Russian Union of Journalists has applied to the Prosecutor General with a request of taking the case investigation under his personal control considering the “public response” and “special cynicism” of the crime committed. Such a measure by the prosecution office would be logical. According to the Center Of Extreme Journalism, about 80 journalists have been assaulted in Russia during a year, while executing their professional duties. The photos of the bashed REN-TV camera crew members have been shown to the whole world. However, no official in Russia has ever been held responsible for any fact of a journalist being assaulted.      

This is why Novaya Gazeta insists on starting a criminal case under three Articles of the Criminal Code saying about: damage caused to health of a person performing a public duty; prevention of professional activities of journalists, accompanied with abuse of office; abuse of office with the use of violence.