Happy birthday Mr. Putin

A neighbor found the body shortly after 5pm.
The killer had been waiting for her, and as she entered the elevator of her apartment building, he shot her several times at point blank range, in the head and chest.
Before leaving the scene, the tall, young assassin, wearing dark clothes and a black baseball cap (he was caught, but only on film, by a video security camera), deposited a Makarov 9 millimeter pistol and silencer next to Anna Politkovskaya’s body.
The message was crystal clear : it was a contract killing. Anna had just returned form the supermarket, and had most likely been followed all day.
One of Russia’s most prominent journalists, surely one of its bravest (she worked for the liberal investigative weekly Novaya Gazeta, whose share holders included Mikhail Gorbachev), and one of president Putin’s most incisive and persistent critics was dead.
She specialized in human rights, and devoted much of her time investigating abuses taking place in Chechnya.
In 2004, she wrote Putin’s Russia, a scathing attack on the authoritarian and corrupt state presided over by Vladimir Putin, then president of Russia, and now prime minister.
A work depicting the everyday horrors of the war waged in Chechnya by the Russians, A Small Corner of Hell, was published a year earlier.
She was murdered exactly three years ago, October 7, 2006, on Vladimir Putin’s birthday…
For Vitaly Yaroshevski, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, there was no mystery as to the motive behind the killing: we are certain that this is the horrible outcome of her journalistic activity. No other versions are assumed, he said.
After remaining silent for several days, Putin felt compelled to comment on the murder. Though initially characterizing the deed as a dreadful and unacceptable crime, he took pains to add she had minimal influence on political life in Russia. Furthermore, he said: this murder does much more harm to Russia and Chechnya than any of her publications. In his view, the only victims of the incident were the reputations of Chechnya, Russia and their leaders. It did not matter that she paid for her courage with her life; he had been embarrassed. Politkovskaya and her writings were superfluous, and a waste of his time…
In an interview that she gave to RFE/RL’s Russian Service (it was to be her last) two days before, October 5th , Anna may have unwittingly given the killers the pretext they sought: I am conducting an investigation about torture today in Kadyrov's prisons, today and yesterday. These are people who were abducted by the Kadyrovtsi [members of Kadyrov's personal militia] for completely inexplicable reasons and who died. They died as part of a PR campaign…these were people whom they had seized, had 'disappeared' for some time, and were then killed.
October 5th happened to be Ramzan Kadyrov’s birthday, a mere two days before that of his idol (in an interview with RFE/RL last August, he had said the following: Putin is my idol. I love him. I respect him. There's no one else like him, personally for me. I owe him more than anyone else. I owe him my life).
The future president of Chechnya, whom she referred to in the interview as a Stalin of our times, is widely suspected by human rights organizations, both in Russia and abroad, of having resorted to kidnappings, torture and executions in order to pacify the rebellious Caucasian republic.
This was the present she hoped to be able to give him some day: personally I only have one dream for Kadyrov's birthday: I dream of him someday sitting in the dock, in a trial that meets the strictest legal standards, with all of his crimes listed and investigated.
It was not to be.
Last February, a military court acquitted the three men charged with complicity in the murder. Rustam Makhmudov, suspected of having pulled the trigger, has fled and is believed to be hiding somewhere in Europe.
In June, Russia’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial, thereby overruling the lower military court’s decision. At the request of Anna Politkovskaya’s children, Vera and Ilya, a new criminal investigation will be launched. As such, the retrial has been postponed.
They are increasingly skeptical however, that those responsible for their mother’s murder will ever be brought to justice: our family is starting to lose hope that the whole chain of those involved in this crime will be found and brought to court, because as time goes by, the chances of finding the people involved in this murder are fading, Vera declared at a Moscow press conference on Tuesday.
Two French representatives of Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based organization that defends journalists, and promotes freedom of the press everywhere were denied visas by the Russian authorities, and thus could not attend the event.
Back in Paris, Jean-François Julliard, the general secretary of the organization said:
we are shocked by this decision, especially as we have always acted openly with the Russian authorities. They decided to prevent us from expressing our solidarity with Russian journalists and human rights activists. Moscow does not want us to address the Russians directly. But we will not give up.
Human rights activists have a Sisyphean task ahead of them in Russia. Since the year 2000, 22 journalists have been killed in the country. In Reporters Without Borders 2008 press freedom index, Russia was in 141st place (out of 173). Tikhon Dzyadko, the organization’s representative in Moscow told The Guardian: to our great regret there is a culture of total impunity with regard to crimes against journalists…
A number of ceremonies were organized in several European capitals, including London and Paris, to commemorate the life and work of Anna Politkovskaya.
In Moscow, a rally took place in a city park, attended by prominent Russian human rights activists and opposition politicians.
Many flowers and posters were also placed in front of Anna Politkovskaya’s apartment building. On one, an anonymous mourner had written: The smart, honest and brave cannot survive in Russia.
The Russian authorities had no comment on this day of commemoration.
On Tuesday night, the Reach All Women in War organization, a group that supports women human rights defenders working in countries in war and conflict, and help(s) end abuse and persecution against them, selected its third Anna Politkovskaya Award winner. The prize, according to its founders, is to be given to a woman human rights defender from a conflict zone in the world who, like Anna, stands up for the victims of this conflict, often at a great personal risk.
The first recipient, in 2007, a year after Anna Politkovskaya’s murder was her friend Natalia Estemirova, a researcher for Memorial (Russia’s most important human rights organization) in Chechnya, who had often provided vital information on human rights abuses to the Novaya Gazeta journalist.
She was also murdered, in Grozny on July 15, 2009. No arrests have been made in that case…
Two months after Anna’s murder, Natalia had said: it's extremely clear to me that those who killed her thought that they were silencing her, but that is not the case. Because now in Novaya Gazeta, in the space where her articles are published, there is and there will be information from Memorial.
Who will now occupy the space that she has left vacant?
This year, the award was given to the Iranian One Million Signatures Campaign, launched by Shirin Ebadi (2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner), among countless others, the aim of which was to demand the modification of discriminatory laws against women in Iran.
Meanwhile, back in Moscow, and also on Tuesday, Memorial chairman, Oleg Orlov, who had been sued by Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov for libel, was ordered by a Moscow court to pay the latter 20,000 rubles (some $670) in damages.
Memorial was compelled to pay 50,000 rubles.
Though Kadyrov had requested 10 million rubles, he appeared satisfied with the court decision: from the very beginning, I attempted to explain to Orlov that he was not right, and very respectfully and reasonably explained to him my opinion on this issue, he said.
The day after Natalia Estemirova’s murder, Mr. Orlov had stated: I know, I am certain who is to blame for the murder of Natasha Estemirova. We all know this person. His name is Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the Chechen Republic.
During the trial he explained that what he meant by that was that he held Mr. Kadyrov politically responsible for the hideous deed, in that he had created a nefarious climate in the republic, where the most heinous crimes were committed in all impunity.
Mr. Orlov was also ordered by the court to withdraw his accusation.
According to The New York Times, Judge Tatyana A. Fedosova needed just two hearings and 30 minutes’ deliberation to reach a decision in Mr. Kadyrov’s libel suit.
It seems that, in Russia, the judicial system moves efficiently when the interests of the powerful are at stake. This rush to judgment in this lawsuit chills debate about things that should be open to public discussion. The authorities should encourage people to discuss current events and be able to tolerate a certain amount of criticism, concluded Human Rights Watch Russia director, Allison Gill.
Mr. Orlov was not satisfied with the verdict, and plans to appeal: I don't agree with the court's decision, of course, but now I understand that in today's Russia, no other ruling should have been expected, he said.
Were he to lose his appeal, he would then seek redress with the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France.
More and more Russians, dismayed by their inability to obtain justice in their own country, are petitioning the Court in Strasbourg instead.
Since 1998, Russians have lodged some 46,000 complaints with the Court, and account for 20% of all new cases. A great many originate in Chechnya.
Though Russia regularly pays compensation and legal fees when ordered to do so by the Court, it never follows any of its recommendations.
Aleksandr Cherkasov, of Memorial, told RFE/RL’s Russian Service that the government has to pay, but it is also obliged to investigate the offenses and to eliminate the factors that made these crimes possible. In the North Caucasus, there have been neither investigations nor systemic changes to the structures that generate these crimes.
In essence, an inordinate number of crimes in Russia are neither investigated nor prosecuted.
Human Rights Watch examined 33 of the 115 Chechen cases that the Court has handled: in almost every case, the court ruled that the Russian government was responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, and forced disappearances. And in almost every case, the court also found the government guilty of failing to carry out an adequate investigation. In the cases we've studied, the court rulings have not led to a single prosecution, Allison Gill said.
Alas, MM. Putin and Medvedev seem to have no interest in justice, and certainly no political use for it.
Anna Politkovskaya, Natalia Estemirova and many others have been silenced by the guns of those who objectively serve the narrow political interests of MM. Putin, Medvedev and Kadyrov. Alas, Memorial has suspended all its activities in Chechnya.
Evidently, in some regions of Russia, including Moscow, it is simply too dangerous to investigate human rights violations or undertake any investigation reporting..
Who will now bear witness to the crimes being committed there?
(the photograph of flowers in front of Anna's apartment building was taken by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA)