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New York Times A10, “Obama Signs Daniel Pearl Law”: 

“President Obama signed legislation on Monday intended to promote a free press around the world, a bipartisan measure inspired by the murder in Pakistan of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The legislation, called the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act, requires the State Department to expand its scrutiny of news media restrictions and intimidation as part of its annual review of human rights in each country. Among other considerations, the department will be required to determine whether foreign governments participate in or condone violations of press freedom. Local officials, unaccustomed to such criticism, lashed out publicly.”

New York Times A1, “In Russia, Journalists Face Blatant Attacks”:

Privately, Mr. Beketov received phone threats. He asked the authorities for help, but was rebuffed, his colleagues said. He returned home one day to discover his dog dead on his doorstep. Then his car was blown up.

Instead of investigating the explosion, prosecutors opened a criminal inquiry into his newspaper. His friends said that Mr. Beketov told them that one city official had warned him about his articles.

On a November evening in 2008, Mr. Beketov was assaulted, most likely by several people, outside his home. He was discovered by a neighbor the next day. Even as Mr. Beketov later lay in a coma at the hospital, he was not safe. A threat was phoned in: We will finish him off.

His friends and colleagues grew so alarmed that they moved him out of the Khimki hospital to a better, more secure one in neighboring Moscow.

Both the police and prosecutors found the case tough to crack. Yuliya Zhukova, a spokeswoman in the Moscow region for the investigative committee of the prosecutor general’s office, said the office had conducted a thorough inquiry, but ultimately had to suspend it for lack of evidence. She said that investigators needed to interview Mr. Beketov to make progress, but that his doctors would not allow that. (Mr. Beketov has been unable to communicate since the attack.)