The Murder of Journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Terrible As It Is, May Just Be That Defining Event That Brings More Press Freedom Back To Russia

Philip Stone October 9, 2006

There has basically been a one-sided civil war going on in Russia between gangsters, politicians, Chechens, and maybe some oligarchs, too, versus the media. Current score since Vladimir Putin came to power: Journalists dead, contract-style 13 – those found guilty 0.

The 13th occurred this past weekend, but the public outpouring of grief and anger within Russia itself, and from so many international organizations and countries to the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a 48-year-old mother of two adult children, indicates that this may be that one murder too much. She was well respected for her writing on subjects that did not please the Kremlin, and her bravery was much admired. The realization seems to have set in very quickly in Russia and outside that enough is enough.

The government is giving some indication it’s getting the message. While Putin has not commented yet on his nemesis who seldom lost an opportunity to severely criticize his policies in Chechnya, the prosecutor-general, Yury Chaika, said he is personally taking charge of the case and that investigators would follow the “Chechen trail”.

Of course there could always be a cover-up, but such is the pressure from within Russia itself, from Mikhail Gorbachev on down, to get to the bottom of this murder, that it seems likely the facts will come out.

Gorbachev has a personal link to this case. Politkovskaya wrote for the bi-weekly Novaya Gazeta, a 600,000 circulation newspaper in which Gorbachev took a major shareholding just this summer. He had previously helped finance  the newspaper in 1993 buying its first computers from some of his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize money. He and Alexander Lebedev, a banking billionaire member of Parliament, bought 49% of the shares in the summer with the newspaper’s staff retaining the 51%.

Lebedev is a leading member of the United Russia Party, controlled by the Kremlin. Gorbachev personally supports Putin’s Chechen policies, and yet the newspaper is considered liberal and is still very critical of Kremlin policies, especially those in Chechnya. Gorbachev’s main role was seen as the newspaper’s  protector from the Kremlin, but he couldn’t stop the bullets, from wherever they came.

Since they bought their minority holding the newspaper has continued to criticize Kremlin policies – indeed Politkovskaya was to have delivered to the newspaper Monday a major story with pictures about tortured bodes found of people who had been kidnapped in Chechnya.

She recently said she was a witness in a criminal case against Moscow-backed Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, whose security forces have been thought to have been behind several kidnappings. Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said he was “shocked” at the journalist’s killing.

She was said to have been finishing her package on Saturday but the newspaper has not received it and there is a feeling that people knew what she was working on and perhaps they, too, took the position that enough was enough

Lebedev is now putting some of his money to very good use. He emailed the newspaper to say he was putting up a 25 million rubles ($930,000, €735,000) reward for any information that can help the investigation. Gorbachev called the killing, “a blow to the entire, democratic, independent press. It is a grave crime against the country, against all of us.”

The one thing that really worries politicians in that part of the world once known as the Soviet Union is when people take to the streets to protest. Such protests can start small and grow to the extent that, as in Georgia, governments are toppled. Thus although it was a small protest Sunday in Moscow’s Pushkinskaya Square of about 500 people who came to lay flowers and light candles in Politkovskaya’s memory, the signs and posters that appeared must worry the Kremlin, for if these people were brave enough to make such signs how many people at home were thinking the same thing?

“The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech,” said one sign fixed to a lamppost. On another, under a poster of Putin was written, “You are responsible for everything.” Yet  another held a poster with the slain journalist’s picture and under was written, “Politkovskaya’s killing and the persecution of an ethnic minority is fascism.”

Different organizations have different statistics, but it’s pretty obvious that since the fall of the Soviet Union 16 years ago that journalists have been used as target practice. Some 43 have been killed, including 13 execution style since Putin became President in the year 2000. The most audacious journalist killing before this weekend was the July, 2004, murder of Paul Klebnikov, an American who was editor of Forbes’ Russian edition.

International organizations and governments quickly made known their horror at Politkovskaya’s murder, linking the death squarely with freedom of the press issues in the Russian Federation.

The World Association of Newspapers, that actually told Putin in the Kremlin last June at their opening session of their annual congress that Russia was backsliding from press freedom has taken aim again. “We condemn this as an outrageous attack not only on a journalist but on freedom of the press and democracy in Russia,” said WAN CEO Timothy Balding.

“We call on Russian authorities to pursue mercilessly the killer or killers and those behind this cowardly act,” he added.  Balding recently returned from Moscow where he told the national meeting of Russian newspaper publishers, “You have a great and vibrant future ahead of you, particularly if your government and other power groups leave you alone to publish and edit your newspapers with the sole imperative of serving your readers and their interests.”

The US State Department said it was shocked and profoundly saddened and that the killing of so many journalists over the years was “an affront to free and independent media and to democratic values.” The 46-nation Council of Europe, whose executive body is headed this session by Russia, called for quick and conclusive investigation.

Finland, holder of the European Union presidency, and a country that does not often take issue with its much larger eastern neighbor, laid out the world’s viewpoint with great undiplomatic clarity.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said, “ This kind of murder puts the credibility of the Russian government and authorities into question. We will now see how well the Russian government and authorities will solve this murder and charge the offenders for this act, whoever they are.”

Anna Politovskaya died a martyr. But will her murder act to modify the government’s continuing pressure on press freedom? Will her murder quell whatever investigative journalism might be left in the Russian Federation, or will others now rush to take her place? If the latter, and the government does back-off,  then her death will not have been in vain.

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OMON Beats Journalists in Moscow, St. Petersburg - April 17, 2007

Russian security police overwhelmed protesters roughed up journalists at a demonstration Sunday in St- Petersburg. This followed a day of beating journalists in Moscow.

At the St Petersburg demonstration, called the Disenters March, ARD/Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) reporter Stephan Stuchlik was arrested after receiving a blow to the head. Technician Wenjamin Sakharov was also knocked to the ground. Stuchlik was later released. A DPA/epa photographer was roughed up by police and a Moscow Times reporter, interviewing protesters, was arrested with them.

 “You contridict all international standards and agreements on working press and mass media,” said WDR General Director Monika Piel addressing Russian authorities. “:At no time did our correspondent or members of the team provoke the security forces to use this force.” (see complete WDR press release here)

Saturday in Moscow Reuters correspondent Thomas Peter and Kommersant correspondent Andrei Kozenko met the OMON (Otryad Militsii Osobogo Naznacheniya - Special Purpose Detachment of Militsiya) security services truncheons.

"Arrest them all! "F—king journalists or not!," yelled one OMON officer, reported by Kommersant.