The editor of a Russian news website died after setting herself on fire in front of a local branch of the interior ministry in the industrial city of Nizhny Novgorod on Friday, a day after police raided her residence in a probe targeting an opposition group, her website confirmed.
Irina Slavina who was the editor-in-chief of the opposition-oriented news site Koza.Press wrote “I ask you to blame the Russian Federation for my death” on her Facebook page hours prior to self-immolation.
It is reported that the website Koza.Press advertises itself as having "no censorship, no orders from above."
Koza.Press said the journalist died from her injuries, saying her husband had confirmed her passing while the site became inaccessible shortly afterwards.
Slavina wrote on Thursday on Facebook that police officers and investigators had searched her flat, looking for materials like “brochures, leaflets and accounts” related to the pro-democracy group Open Russia, financed by Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
She said that the computers and data were seize from her flat during the raid.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said it was opening a preliminary inquiry after a woman self-immolated in Nizhny Novgorod, a city of 1.2 million about 380 kilometres east of Moscow.
The local branch of the Russia's Investigative Committee in Nizhny Novgorod said Slavina was only a witness in the criminal case for which the searches were being carried out. It said there was "no basis" to connect her death to the raids.
"She was a witness, and not a suspect and also not a defendant in the criminal probe which prompted the investigative actions," said Russia's federal investigators.
Members of Russia's opposition said Slavina had been under pressure from authorities.
“Over the past years security officials have subjected her to endless persecution because of her opposition (activities),” opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov wrote on Instagram.
“What a nightmare,” Ilya Yashin, another Kremlin critic, wrote on Twitter. “All of these cases of police amusing themselves, these shows of men in masks – these are not games. The government is truly breaking people psychologically.”
Slavina's website carried out investigative reporting and covered opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com
