The Kremlin isn’t commenting on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, who’d been reporting Putin’s “anti-terror campaign” in Chechnya.
But Mikhail Gorbachev is:
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, a shareholder in Politkovskaya’s newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has called the killing a “a blow to the entire democratic, independent press”
You can read a 2004 interview with Politkovskaya at The Guardian.
As debate whirls around Coonan’s media laws in this country, and the prime question on many people’s lips is which media magnate will end up with an ever bigger slice of the media pie, this is a salutary reminder of the true importance of a free press.
Politkovskaya was out here for the Sydney Writers Festival & her sessions were available as streaming vids. Go see. Also send Downer an email asking him to “Please Explain” to the Russian embassy – yes I’ve done a cut & paste version ready for you. & lets not forget that Putin’s regime refused her police protection despite repeated threats against her life.
Have you got a link to the vids, Bernice?
A sad time for the people of Russia.
Streaming vid link. http://swf.bigpond.com/
Seems like the SMH isn’t commenting on this either. I have written asking ‘please explain’ why this is not deemed newsworthy enough to feature in the online edition of the SMH. She was after all well known in Australia via the writers festival. Apparently the SMH is more concerned with Lindsay Lohan being a no show. Does anything illustrate how 2nd rate and provincial we have become when this is not considered newsworthy in this country?
Putin must be prime suspect because of his KGB background and all his recent dictatorial, centralizing fascistic activities.
For deep background there is a newish book out called ,
‘ Stalins hangmen’, by Donald Rayfield.
The Chechens are also one of the very few, if not the one-and-only organized resistance to Stalin at the height of his power. RIP Anna.
Much as it is tempting to finger Putin for this – dodgy ex-KGB and all that – at this stage I don’t think the case is that compelling, even in a ‘will no one rid me of this meddling journalist’ sense. Putin is in near-complete control of his country’s electronic media and lot of the dead-tree stuff as well. As well, the Russian people have been exposed to a steady diet of Chechen atrocities and atrocity stories, from both sides for over a decade now on a level we in the West aren’t really familiar with, with little effect. Brave as Ms. Politkovskaya was, her writing in Novaya Gazeta (a small bi-weekly newspaper) wasn’t about to blow Putin’s world apart.
A more likely candidate would probably be someone connected to the Pro-Russian Chechens, like Ramzan Kadyrov or his ilk. While there wasn’t really a way she could damage Putin, Polikovskaya had mountains of dirt on these guys.
Whatever the case may be, we are never likely to find out – the chances of this murder being competently investigated, let alone solved, are next to nothing going by Russian cops’ record.
LLoyd:
Are you sure that the SMH isn’t running the story? If that were the case, SMH would be the laughing stock of the whole world.
I found a great link to an article that sheds more light into this situation: http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/10/0FE50696-438E-453E-9F74-401BDE7A9BB0.html
What a horrific testimony to what can happen in the pursuit of truth. She wasn’t the first female/male journalist to die for trying to unveil govt. cover-ups and she won’t be the last I’m sure. But journalism of this kind is noble and needed. With more monopolistic media conglomerates, it’s harder to hear original and independent voices covering world news.
Thank you Anna for your sacrifice.