When ‘death’ and ‘newspapers’ are mentioned in the same sentence these days, it is usually to describe the demise of a media company. In Russia, alas, the meaning is more often than not deadly literal.
The London Times reported that local journalist “Sergei Protazanov, who was disabled and had a prosthetic arm, died after doctors had discharged him from hospital”. He had been savagely beaten up in the Moscow suburb of Khimky – the same place as Mikhail Beketov; and like Beketov, Protazanov had been investigating local abuses of power such as vote stuffing.
In fact Khimky, a faceless Moscow suburb, has become quite a journalistic deathtrap: this was the sixth in two years against reporters in Khimki, notes the article.