It’s no mystery that Russian journalists are an endangered species. Beyond the headlines grabbed by the famous cases of Paul Klebnikov and Anna Politkovskaya, there are so many more who are threatened, beaten, harassed, and forced out of work, home, and country all thanks to their unpardonable nature of the work. They write things that powerful people wish to remain secret.

The journalists of modern Russia forced to seek asylum for their own safety is long, including Yelena Tregubova, Yuri Bagrov, Fatima Tlisova, and on and on, many of whom were involved in some manner in reporting on Chechnya.  There are also other very successful journalists, such as Natalia Morari, who are expelled from Russia against their will, and even unknown young interns, such as Anastasia Baburova, who are shot dead for nothing more than walking alongside the wrong human rights lawyer at the wrong time.

As my readers know, I just got back from the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum, where I had the chance to catch up with I met Lena Maglevannaya – the journalist and human rights advocate from Volgograd. The fragile young journalist was at the Forum to deliver a speech about torture inside the Volgograd prison system. In previous months, she had given extensive coverage to this story with articles bearing titles such as “The fate of a Chechen in a Russian jail“, “Tortures of imprisoned Chechen continue“, “Tortures in Russian colonies“, published on the site Civitas.ru.