A prize-winning Russian opposition journalist was beaten badly on Thursday, with her newspaper later alleging police were slow to follow up the attack, according to dpa. Yelena Milashina, a reporter for the anti-government Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was assaulted in a residential district of the Russian capital shortly after midnight, according to the paper. She had been accompanied by a female friend. The attack by unknown assailants knocked out some of the women's teeth and left them with severe injuries on their heads and upper bodies, the Interfax news agency said. Novaya Gazeta spokeswoman Nadezhda Prusenkova told the agency Milashina would be hospitalised, and claimed that Moscow police were dragging their feet on responding to the attack. A statement from the Moscow police department said they were searching for Milashina but were unable to find her to take a statement on the attack. Prusenkova said Milashina went home after reporting the attack to police by telephone. Milashina received a 2009 award from the NGO Human Rights Watch for her reporting on individual rights violations during Russia's war against insurgents in the Caucasus region. She recently had written a series of articles on police corruption and the Russian judicial system's alleged improper enforcement of anti-narcotics laws. Russia's best-known opposition reporter, Anna Politkovskaya, was employed by Novaya Gazeta until 2006, when she was murdered in her Moscow apartment building.
