Gregory Shvedov is the Russian editor in chief of the 24/7 internet news agency Caucasian Knot, which covers events in each of the 20 regions of Russia’s North Caucasus, South Federal District, and the independent South Caucasus. Shvedov and his staff work to ensure public access to reports on human rights violations in the Caucasus, an area of ongoing conflict. Shvedov has also served as director of the information agency at Memorial, the pioneering Russian human rights group. He now serves on the International Board. Through Memorial, Shvedov directed more than a dozen regional and interregional projects seeking to influence public opinion, including more than 60 discussions held throughout Russia on the issue of Chechnya. He has also overseen numerous projects that introduce social marketing to human rights activists in various regions of Russia. In 2012 he won the Geuzenpenning award for his work exposing corruption and human rights abuses in Caucasus and Chechnya. As recently as 2017, Shvedov remains under threat by political leaders. Chechnya’s speaker of Parliament, Magomed Daudov, threatened Shvedov via his Instagram account calling Shvedov a “dog” and threatened to “tame his tongue to a standard size.” Intimidation of journalists results in “practicing self-censorship on issues related to Chechnya,” said Shvedov (Al Jazeera, March, 2017).