The correspondent of Dosh, a magazione which covers mainly the Russian Caucasus went missing from his home on 31 July and his body discovered the following day in a suburb of Nalchik, the capital of the autonomous Kabardino-Balkar Republic in the Russian Caucasus, according to reports.

Kuashev covered abuses carried out by the security forces in the course of anti-terrorism operations. He had received threats for years and wrote about them in an open letter he published in April 2013, saying he was concerned for his life.

He had also reported received death threats from users of the LiveJournal blog platform. “As a provocateur, aren’t you afraid of being swept away by the wave you create,” one wrote, suggesting that Kuashev was on a hit-list. “Don’t play with fire... reflect for once (...) on what you are doing and where it is leading you. That’s my advice.” Another wrote: “You will die at an astonishingly young age.”

Source: RSF/RUJ