Freedom of the Press in Russia...

It's gotten to the point where you pretty much expect any dissenting Russian journalist to be killed. The more entrenched Putin has become as Russia's chief thugocrat, the lower the life expectancy of any Russian journalist who doesn't toe the Putin line.

This most recent case is from Ingushetia, which is near Georgia and South Ossetia. Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal:

Police arrested and shot to death Sunday the head of an Internet news service who had been critical of authorities in the volatile Caucasus province of Ingushetia.

...

Authorities in Moscow issued a statement confirming Mr. Yevloyev was shot in the head while in police custody Sunday in an "incident" that is under investigation. Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin didn't elaborate, saying a check to clarify the circumstances of Mr. Yevloyev's death had begun. The committee is under the Russian Prosecutor General's office.

Mr. Yevloyev had been a vociferous critic of Ingushetia's governor, a former security-service agent who has been backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Mr. Yevloyev had charged that regional and federal agents were brutalizing the locals, and kidnapping and assassinating political enemies. In June, a judge ordered him to close down his site on charges of spreading "extremist" statements, but it lately reappeared under a different name.

Mr. Yevloyev had been in Moscow on business during the weekend and was arrested Sunday morning as he stepped off a plane that landed in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia. He was whisked away in an armored jeep of Russia's Interior Ministry and dumped a short time later near a local hospital with a single bullet wound through the head, said a friend, Mogamed Khazbiyev, who had gone to the airport to meet him.

...

Mr. Yevloyev was the latest in a series of Russian journalists to have died in suspicious circumstances. The death of Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in October 2006 at her Moscow apartment, highlighted the dangers faced by Russia's independent press. Ms. Politkovskaya was a lead reporter at Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based newspaper that specializes in muckraking and probes of government corruption. She was the third journalist at the paper to die under mysterious circumstances. Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was shot on a Moscow street in July 2004.

...

I've traveled extensively in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of the time I felt completely safe, though at times I was worried about petty thieves (and actually had an expensive camera lens stolen). I would not feel safe today...

How tragic this is for the ordinary Russian citizen. Their country had its chance to take the same course as other former Soviet states, to prosperity and personal freedom. Instead the thugs have taken over, ordinary folks are suffering, lifespans are declining, income is declining, population is declining, and this sort of brutality is now...expected.