Central Asia is one of many places in this world where challenging power as a journalist can get you shot to death in the lobby of your own apartment building.

An excerpt from the AP story carried on CTV.ca:

Seven shots were fired and four struck Elmar Huseinov, founder and editor of the opposition magazine Monitor, police at the scene in Baku, the capital, told journalists.

Tension between the government and the opposition in tightly controlled Azerbaijan has increased since the October 2003 election in which Ilham Aliev replaced his father, longtime leader Geidar Aliev, as president in a vote the opposition called fraudulent.

Several opposition leaders, including newspaper editors, have been sentenced to prison over unrest that followed the election.

Monitor has been published and sold privately since a decision forbidding the state printing and distribution company from selling it.

Here is Reporters Without Borders' 2004 report on Azerbaijan.

Here's a few subheadlines:

Two journalists imprisoned

At least 37 journalists arrested

At least 99 journalists physically attacked

Harassment and obstruction