I was deeply saddened to learn of the brutal assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, Russian’s most famous investigative journalist. She was returning home from a shopping trip when she was gunned down in the lift of her apartment block in Moscow. It was an apparent ruthless contract killing.
She was a fearless. grey-haired woman of 48 whose only weapon was the truth. Despite repeated death threats, she was unstoppable. She was one of the few Russian journalists who dared to write critically about widespread human rights abuses and war crimes in Chechnya. She won international acclaim for her reports but was hated by many in Russia’s security forces. She once described President Vladimir Putin as a “KGB snoop� and compared him to Stalin. She naturally made enemies.
She was deeply affected by the atrocities she witnessed, haunted by the suffering of innocent victims. To her, reporting was far more than a job — she saw it as a moral obligation. Unlike most reporters, she often crossed the line between journalism and personal involvement. At the height of the bombing of Chechnya, she once bravely negotiated the safe passage of dozens of elderly civilians trapped in Grozny, the Chechen capital.
She was a defenceless woman killed by a cold-blooded armed coward wearing a black baseball cap. Let’s hope the international condemnation of Anna’s brutal murder will inspire other Russian journalists to continue where she left off, I’m sure that’s what she would have wanted, the truth is the most powerful weapon of all.
I get the feeling that this story will run and run and run, don’t you?
Tom, I hope so in the sense of international outrage and condemnation.
“The Glasnost Defence Foundation, a Russian NGO representing journalists under threat, claims that 130 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 1991. At least 12 have died in contract-style slayings since 2000.”
Here
It seems that old habits die hard in Russia.
I wonder who will have the courage to investigate the murder?
Sometimes these events can be a turning point; I fear we are a way from that yet in Russia.
Ellee, I’m not so far from where it happened. Did you see my post on her?
This is a real pity – but it is unlikely that the truth will out. I recommend her book “Putin’s Russia”. I used to be optimistic about Russia, I am no longer.
Pragetory, I shall buy her book “Putin’s Russia”, I shall read it with interest too, I’m very interested having visited the country myself, as well as being a journalist and supporter of Amnesty International.
I hope we discover the truth behind her slaying.
What with Chechnya, Georgia and now this, makes you wonder how long before Russia implodes completely…
I presume you all know that her assasination happened on Putin’s birthday? Not that I’m suggesting the two things are connected.
I have just been wathing the news about this in Italy. The Rusian government has now said it is “sorry”? Come on!
Yes i read about this, terribly terribly sad. I hope the rest of the world continues to highlight her work.
Dizzy, that is an incredible connection, you are very clever to have discovered it, it certainly makes the mind boggle.