ALBAWABA - Russian journalist and human rights advocate Elena Milashina was severely beaten up while on her way to cover a trial in the Russian republic of Chechnya.
The Russian journalist said that masked men got in her way and forced her to get out of her car and hit her with plastic pipes.
Furthermore, Milashina continued to tale "horrific" details about how attackers forcibly shaved her hair as well as doused her in green dye not far from the airport.
Milashina said that she believed that the 10 masked men who attacked her and attorney Alexander Nemov moments after leaving Grozny airport after they targeted her while riding three cars.
According to the Russian journalist, she earlier received death threats from Chechnya's notorious leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who is known to be a very close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
(Photo by Sergei Babinets / The Crew Against Torture / AFP)
Milashina and Nemov were heading to Chechnya court to attend a verdict for a mother of three exiled Kadyrov critics, but due to the attack, they were unable to reach court.
Court gave Zarema Musayeva a five-and-a-half-year jail term on charges condemned as politically motivated.
The Russian journalist said in a statement to a Chechen human rights official in a hospital in Grozny: "It was a classic kidnapping."
She maintained: "They pinned me down then threw our driver out of his car, climbed in, bent our heads down, tied my hands, forced me to my knees and put a gun to my head."
Amnesty International and human rights activists heavily condemned the attack on the Russian journalist and the attorney and called the international community to take serious action against targeting journalists.
On the other hand, Kremlin labelled the attack on the Russian journalist as a "very serious attack that had to be investigated."
