Over recent years, Novaya Gazeta journalists have paid a heavy price for their investigations into the darker side of Russian politics.  Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006, Anastasia Baburova in 2009.  It remains unclear at the moment whether their fellow Gazeta journalist, Elena Miliashina, and her friend, the Freedom House representative Ella Asoyan, who were the victims of an assault and robbery this week, were targeted because of their work.  The Committee to Protect Journalists points out that there is considerable reason to believe the incident may be the result of Milashina’s probings into rights abuses: