November 10, 2009 By Citizen M

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Nov 10, 2009

PH2009110817812.jpgTODAY: Youtube policeman faces slander investigation; Omsk students threatened with expulsion; Committee to Protect Journalists urge global attention to threats against media in Russia. Merkel thanks Gorbachev; Medvedev approves new military bill; advocates abolition of death penalty. Delay for Gazprom eyesore?; Nobel Prize winning physicist dies; Kalashnikov goes on; gangsters’ idea of cemetery chic.

Corruption-highlighting policeman Alexei Dymovsky is now facing three investigations after posting a video address to Putin lamenting the state of the police, including an Investigative Committee examination of whether the policeman’s accusations hold any truth; another investigation is against Dymovsky himself, for slander.  Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev has already ordered an investigation into the Novorossiisk police force and suspended Dymovsky pending the results – though he has already been fired by his superiors.  The Russian interior minister has his work cut out for him at today’s annual Police Day address after a difficult year for the reputation of law enforcers.  The Times has a run down of prominent Russians who criticized the government, and paid for it dearly.  Representatives of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Kati Marton and Nina Ognianova, have a piece here about the necessity for the world to address the problem of freedom of press and threats to journalists in Russia.  Apparently 44% of Moscovites do not trust the results of the recent elections.  However, supporting some commentators’ claims that there is widespread apathy about the results, 51% of Moscow residents do not believe that there is the need for new elections to be called.  12 students branded ‘extremists’ by Omsk State University’s administrators, including three who are members of the Yabloko opposition party, may face expulsions.