Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered 3 years ago on Vladimir Putin’s birthday. Activists, writers, actresses, even politicians were scheduled to appear at a memorial rally for her in Moscow this week. A Russian supreme court probe offers a degree of hope. But her daughter Vera says she doesn’t believe the killers will ever be brought to justice.
Hear the radio show I produced last year or read the transcript HERE.
Just last week Alexander Podrabinek, another Russian journalist said he was threatened and forced into hiding because of a critical article. BBC recently reviewed Russia’s “litany of unsolved murders” over the past 15 years.
Reporters Without Borders representatives were denied passports to travel to Russia to host a press conference and video screening. The events went ahead without the individuals, including a screening of “Letter to Anna” a documentary directed by Eric Bergkraut.
On the third anniversary of the murder of Novaya Gazeta investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:
“Three years after a hired gunman shot to death our colleague Anna Politkovskaya outside her Moscow apartment, neither he nor those who sent him to her doorstep have been brought to justice. This record of impunity is an abomination of the rule of law and freedom of the press in one of the world’s most influential countries,” said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova. “Russian authorities must do a better job to ensure that all those responsible for Anna’s murder—as well as for the 17 other work-related killings of journalists committed in Russia since 2000—are successfully prosecuted.”
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