Murder of a Writer
“…self-appointed executioners…”

Michael Hedges October 9, 2006

Anya was strong and brave at a time when weakness and fear keeps many from asking the hard questions. It was Russia that she loved. She cried for Russia as she wrote devastatingly critical work about what she said is resurgent Stalinism. She wrote about Chechnya, sparing no side her sharp words.

Anna Politkovskaya, age 48, died at her Moscow apartment building Saturday afternoon. Knocked backwards into the elevator by the first bullet to the chest, her perilous journey ended with a bullet to the head. The apartment security camera preserved the image of a lone assassin, wearing a black baseball cap. He left the Makarov 9mm and the shell casings, a signature. This was not random.

Outrage came swiftly. Moscovites were stunned. Another contract killing in a city that so wants to be normal.

But there has been no normal life in Moscow or the rest of Russia, they think, since the Soviet Union fell. As if that was normal.

Anya pursued what she said was Russia’s darkening promise. She challenged President Putin. She challenged the Chechyan war. Her murders perpetrators could have been doing the bidding of either, or others. Every possibility has been suggested.

Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis offered a much more chilling, and logical, conclusion. “Self-appointed executioners,” he said to the BBC, were “silencing voices of protest.”

“She was a woman of great personal courage…and an international reputation for honesty and independence…”.

“We were expecting some material for Monday’s issue,” said Novaya Gazeta Deputy Editor Vitaly Yaroshevsky. “It was about torture in Chechnya.” The newspaper’s editor said she had pictures.

Few Moscow media outlets are known for printing or airing dissent. Novaya Gazeta, now partly owned by former Soviet President Mikhal Gorbachev, is one. Another is radio station Èho Moskvy. Some suggest Russian media czar Medvedev allows them to speak their minds to give the appearance of press freedom…and because they are small.

There is a line between journalism and advocacy. Most journalists do not cross it. Those who choose to step over it do so with a conviction and a certain knowledge that they’ve entered a danger zone, clearly as deadly as any war. Less than a month ago Ogulsapar Muradova, Radio Liberty Kyrgyz service journalist and human rights activist, was brutally murdered in a Turkmenistan jail.

And none of this is new or geographically confined. Thirty years ago Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles’ automobile was blown up in a Phoenix parking lot by a remote controlled device. Bolles died 11 days later. He was investigating political corruption. 

It was also President Putin’s birthday.

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