Nikolai Andrushchenko was a Russian journalist. Andrushchenko was co-founder of the Novy Peterburg newspaper. He was known for his articles about human rights and a critic against President Vladimir Putin. Andrushchenko said that the center of Putin's politics had always been money and nothing else. He was beaten up by strangers and died in 2017.
According to Wikipedia Nikolai Andruschenko was a member of the St. Petersburg City Council from 1990 to 1993. Because of what he experienced during the end of the Soviet Union he wanted to change Russia, especially by investigating the corruption in his country. Acording to PEN America Nikolai Andrushchenko was repeatedly persecuted for his investigations into official corruption. In 2007 he was charged with insulting Yunis Lukmanov, the chairman of the housing committee of the St. Peterburg. He was found guilty by a Russian court and had to pay a fine. Two years later he was charged with insulting Dmitry Mazurov, a member of the Russian prosecutor‘s office. He was found guilty and had to pay 20000 Russian rubels. He was also beaten several times, resulting in problems with his vision, and resumed writing only after years of recovery. Denis Usov, editor of the Novy Peterburg, said, "it is known that not long before this incident, he was jumped near his house by some unknown individuals, who beat him up and demanded some documents related to his professional work as a journalist, connected with his recent publications." Boris Vishnevsky, a St Petersburg lawmaker and former contributor to the opposition Novaya Gazeta newspaper, said that Andrushchenko had published some "very harsh reports" but was not one of Putin's more prominent or current critics. "Nikolai was not a very easy person. I can say that he was a decent, sincere and honest person, but our political views were always different," he added. “Since the moment Nikolai Andrushchenko was found unconscious in the street, Russian police have not investigated the case and have gone so far as to dismiss it as an accident,” said Polina Kovaleva, PEN America’s Free Expression Programs Coordinator for Eurasia. “The Russian authorities cannot allow attacks of any kind against journalists, writers, or bloggers to go unnoted or uninvestigated. The perpetrators must be identified and brought to trial.” According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Andrushchenko’s murder is the first instance of a journalist being killed in Russia since 2013. He had a wife and two children. Their names are unknown. Andrushchenko‘s work was not forgotten. Nikolai Andrushchenko was commemorated among 18 other journalists in Washington at the Fallen Journalists Memorial Wall for being killed while pursuing their work |