(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has strongly condemned the 11 August 2005 beating of Pawel Reszka, Moscow correspondent for the Polish daily “Rzeczpospolita”. The organisation called on Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev to find and punish those responsible for the attack. “Current tensions between Poland and Russia cannot justify such attacks on Polish journalists,” RSF said. Reszka […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has strongly condemned the 11 August 2005 beating of Pawel Reszka, Moscow correspondent for the Polish daily “Rzeczpospolita”. The organisation called on Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliev to find and punish those responsible for the attack.
“Current tensions between Poland and Russia cannot justify such attacks on Polish journalists,” RSF said.
Reszka was accosted by a group of four or five men in a street underpass near his office when he went out to buy cigarettes. He was thrown to the ground and severely beaten. The thugs then fled and the journalist was taken to hospital with serious injuries to his face, head and back, and bruises all over his body.
Reszka had recently written several articles on similar attacks against two employees of the Polish embassy in Moscow, on 5 and 7 August. The day he was attacked, he had wondered aloud in “Rzeczpospolita” who was next.
The recent incidents in Moscow come after young Polish thugs attacked three children of Russian diplomats in Warsaw on 31 July. The Polish government condemned the attack but did not issue a formal diplomatic apology to Russia.
After the attack on Reszka, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to ensure the safety of Poles living in Russia.
