The situation for journalists improved in Russia in 2010 because no journalists were killed that year and prosecutors have since gained two high-profile convictions, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a new report.
Russia has "made measurable progress" among 13 nations on the New York-based group's annual "Impunity Index," which calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country's population.
"Senior investigative officials reopened several unsolved journalist murder cases after meeting with a CPJ delegation in 2010, and, in April, prosecutors won convictions in the 2009 murder of reporter Anastasiya Baburova in Moscow," CPJ research said.
On May 6, the Moscow City Court sentenced far-right activist Nikita Tikhonov to life imprisonment for murdering human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Baburova in Moscow in January 2009.
Tikhinov's partner, Yevgeniya Khasis, was given an 18-year sentence for helping him kill them.
"Convictions in Russia are a hopeful sign after years of indifference and denial," CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said in a statement.
The have been 16 unsolved killing of journalists in Russia over the past decade, according to the study, which only looked at the 13 countries with five or more unsolved killings of journalists since January 1, 2001.
The committee's report was published the day after the arrest in Chechnya of a man suspected of shooting prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006.
"The arrest of Rustam Makhmudov is a welcome development in the investigation of this significant case," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said in a statement.
MOSCOW, June 1 (RIA Novosti)
