CPJ: Police should protect Kremlin-critical journalist

MOSCOW – The Committee to Protect Journalists is calling on Russian police to ensure the safety of reporter Yulia Latynina after a foul-smelling gas was sprayed into her residence on the edge of Moscow.

Latynina is well-known as a Kremlin critic, writing for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and hosting a show on Echo Moskvy radio.

In a column posted on Novaya Gazeta’s website, Latynina said the substance appeared to have been tossed in a balloon through an open window before dawn on Wednesday at her residence in Peredelkino, a dacha settlement on Moscow’s outskirts that is popular among writers.

Latynina wrote Thursday that she would not “participate in the comedy” of filing a police complaint.

But a CPJ statement urged police to “ensure that she can live and work in safety.”