Outspoken Russian Journalist Killed in Moscow

[pieter]

Outspoken Russian Journalist Killed in Russian Capital

MosNews


Prominent Russian journalist, known for her harsh criticism of the Kremlin’s policies and Vladimir Putin’s regime, was killed in the Russian capital on Saturday evening, local media reports said.

Anna Politkovskaya was found dead at 17-10 on Saturday, in a lift of a house where she lived.

The journalist had died of a gun wound, a police source has told the Interfax news agency.

Politkovskaya worked as a reporter for the Novaya Gazeta daily. She rose to prominence and achieved international recognition for her coverage of developments in Russia’s restive southern province of Chechnya and other North Caucasian provinces.

“She was shot dead in the entrance hall of the house where she lived,” Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, confirmed.

www.mosnews.com/news/2006/10/07/politkovskaya.shtml


Novaya Gazeta

Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper. A semi-weekly covering political and social issues, it is published in Moscow, Russian regions and some foreign countries. The general circulation is now near 550,000 copies. In addition, it has a colour monthly supplement with a 75,000-copy circulation.
Novaya Gazeta is known for being critical of Russian government policy. Anna Politkovskaya wrote for Novaya Gazeta until her death by gunshot on October 7, 2006.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and State Duma Deputy Alexander Lebedev own 49% of the newspaper and the paper's staff controls the remaining 51% of shares.

novayagazeta.ru/

[pieter]

Anna Politkovskaya
(Source; Wikipedia)

Anna Politkovskaya is a Russian journalist well known for her opposition to the Putin administration. She studied journalism at the Moscow State University, graduating in 1980, and began her career with the Izvestia newspaper. Since June 1999, she has written columns for the online news publication Novaya Gazeta.
She has, on several occasions, been involved in negotiating the release of hostages, including the October 2002 Nord-Ost crisis in which Chechen rebels stormed a Moscow theatre. Politkovskaya has also been involved in supporting the legal rights of victims' families.
During the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004, Politkovskaya was felled by a mysterious case of poisoning after drinking tea on an airline flight while on her way to Beslan to help negotiations with the hostage-takers. She fell violently ill, lost consciousness and never made it to the school. The cause of her illness has not been determined, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Articles by Politovskaya on the HRO website for people who can read Russian;
www.hro.org/war/anna/

www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/61071

Another short biography
www.lettre-ulysses-award.org/authors03/politkovskaia.html

[Jaga]

Unfortunately in Russia this is a way how the government get rid of uncomfortable people. I am glad that at least this story was one of the two most important in google news today.

Russia does not want to change and democratize. Russian polititians and people in power would rather kill people who endanger their positions.

[rdywenur]

Jaga.. I saw that story yesterday. We must be real thankful that we live here and can speak freely. It is sad but at least she had courage to speak out the truth and her beliefs. They need more people like her. I hope one day things will change for Russia.

[leslie]

HI
As this is a Polish forum, was this Russian woman killed in Russia by a Pole?
Leslie

[rdywenur]

HI
As this is a Polish forum, was this Russian woman killed in Russia by a Pole?
Leslie

Leslie, Don't you like Russians or are we cranky this morning.

[leslie]

Chris - probably all three!!!!

Leslie

[bescheid]

leslie said:

Chris - probably all three!!!!

Leslie

Oh Leslie

I am shocked at your response of these Russians. They have their problems as of ours. It is just the method of conciliation of said problems that is different. The results are usually the same, the problem is resolved.

I am very sorry for the lady, her life was cut short with the pain of death. Some thing must have hurt, and to die, if at least not pleasant, is for ever. For if one is to reason and consider, her entire life up to the moment of expiration. Her parents, husband {if any} family. All that she was, and would have ever been, is now nothing, simply tot. Very dead.

Charles

[leslie]

Charles
This was not meant to shock, although as a general race the Russians do not appeal to me (Eric VERY much excluded) based on the colours they showed in WWII against Poland and their lip service to being one of the Big Three Allies - they had their own agenda and only agreed with Roosevelt and Churchill when it suited. But this was not my main point.

All this information is about Russia and a Russian journalist - is there not a Russian culture forum to which this would have been more relevant for discussion than a Polish forum?

Leslie

[constantine]

Unfortunately in Russia this is a way how the government get rid of uncomfortable people. I am glad that at least this story was one of the two most important in google news today.
Russia does not want to change and democratize. Russian polititians and people in power would rather kill people who endanger their positions.
------------------------------------------------------------------
And what is a connection between our government and Politkovskaya? She was annoying person not only for government! What an inappropriate Western manner to blame Russian government in all absurdities! Hmmm, I am rather astonished that there is no any insinuation that it was Putin's direct order.

[constantine]

Chris - probably all three!!!!
---------------------------------------------------
Ohhh!!! This words are very appropriated for enlighted and tolerant Europe, we are against chauvinism but still having no special sympathy of these Russians!

[bujno]

The Russians protest:




A memorial for Novaya gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya was combined with a protest against anti-Georgian discrimination on Pushkin Sqaure in downtown Moscow, October 8, 2006.

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I am with those who have the courage to potest, to think. The question arises who profited from Anna Politkowska's death most?


Kommersant: The murder of Novaya gazeta newspaper reporter Anna Politkovskaya may shift the balance of political power in Chechnya. Politkovskaya concentrated on Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, whom Politkovskaya thought should be on trial rather than running in elections, and his associates. Now, whether they are implicated in the investigation of her death or not, federal authorities are likely to give their approval for a massive check of the political and law enforcement figures of that republic. One theory has it that that was the motive for her murder.
www.kommersant.com/p711307/r_530/Murder_reporter_Politkovskaya/

[constantine]

I saw that story yesterday. We must be real thankful that we live here and can speak freely. It is sad but at least she had courage to speak out the truth and her beliefs. They need more people like her. I hope one day things will change for Russia.
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Don't be so proud, here in Russia we have an opportunity to speak freely too. But we still have some rotten persons. And if you whan I would explain my point of view (may be too shocking) in this case.

[Jaga]

++She was annoying person +++

there are many annoying people in the world but majority of them are not killed by organized crime units.

[piwo]

Murders of vocal political dissidents, especially high profile ones will elicit "conspiracy theories" in every corner of the earth: east, west, north and south: that's just a plain fact. That it happens in the former police state that was Soviet Union makes it even juicier, and that the head of that government went about restricting dissident media after he became premier makes for even better drama. That he is former head of KGB makes the story even more attractive to those who chose to speculate. (Was it any different when our President Bush gained office after months of legal proceedings? Daddy was former CIA chief, Rockefeller industrial giants paying off the courts, so forth and so on.) Russia too spins most every story it can into a sinister "western" conspiracy to this day, so that individuals on a POLISH forum chatter among themselves what everyone in every corner of the planet is "whispering" about should not be so shocking. It's human nature, EVERYWHERE. What is reality may be far from the perception (or what is hoped by the masses speculating), but most prefer to look at the the dark angle or possibility.

Constantine,
If the Watergate reporters Woodward and Bernstein had been found murdered in Washington DC during or after the Watergate investigations, would it not have garnered the same attention, and same "insinuations" by everyone, including the Russian media and it's population? That type of speculation would have been prevalent here, in Russia and ever other corner of the globe.

This particular story just has too much intrigue, does it not?