Investigative reporter leaves Russia over death threats

• One of Russia's top journalists, decides to leave the country temporarily after receiving death threats.
• A paper says she has received threats in recent days from prominent representatives of Chechnya.
  
• However, she will continue to cover rights and politics in Chechnya.
  

MOSCOW: An award-winning investigative journalist, Elena Milashina, is temporarily leaving Russia after receiving death threats from the leadership of Chechnya, her newspaper said.

Milashina has covered rights abuses in Chechnya for Russia's top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta for years and won several international awards.

The paper said she had received threats in recent days from prominent representatives of Chechnya, a southern region of Russia where the Kremlin fought wars against separatists in the 1990s and 2000s.

"The editorial board decided to send Elena Milashina on a business trip outside of Russia," Novaya Gazeta said in a statement, citing "numerous" threats from prominent Chechen figures.

Milashina, 44, will continue to cover rights and politics in Chechnya, where a local strongman, Ramzan Kadyrov, emerged as a leader after the wars.

"Her location will in no way affect the coverage of rights issues in Chechnya," the statement said.

Novaya Gazeta, whose chief editor Dmitry Muratov won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, has since 2000 seen six of its journalists and contributors killed, including investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya.

By focusing on rights abuses in Chechnya, Milashina has followed in the footsteps of Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of the Kremlin's policies in Chechnya, who was shot dead in 2006.

Kadyrov in late January called Milashina and rights activist Igor Kalyapin "terrorists" and urged law enforcement to detain them.

The Chechen authorities this week staged what they said was a 400,000-strong all-male rally against critics — including Milashina — in the region's main city, Grozny.

Muratov told AFP on Friday that a decision had been taken to send Milashina abroad after the rally.

"We can´t know for certain who would come up with the idea of carrying out these threats," he said, adding that it was hard to know when Milashina would be able to return.

Milashina told independent TV channel Dozhd that she was concerned about her safety.

"This is a very serious situation," she said Thursday evening.

Milashina has received death threats in the past and previously had to leave Russia for several months.

Rights groups have been raising concerns about a recent string of alleged kidnappings, detentions and threats in tightly-controlled Chechnya.

A Chechen lawmaker, Adam Delimkhanov, recently threatened on social media to "cut off the heads" of a critical judge and his family members.

On Wednesday, Putin met with Kadyrov in the Kremlin, and the Kremlin spokesman afterwards denied that the situation in Chechnya was "out of control".