Anna Politkovskaya
Encyclopedia
Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian journalist
, author, and human rights
activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict
and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin
. On 7 October 2006 she was shot and killed in the lift of her block of flats, an unsolved assassination that continues to attract international attention.
Politkovskaya made her reputation reporting from Chechnya
. Her post-1999 articles about conditions in Chechnya were turned into several books; Russian readers' main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya gazeta
, a Russian newspaper known for its often-critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published a personal account: Putin's Russia.
in 1958. Her parents, diplomats
at the United Nations
, were Ukrainian. Politkovskaya grew up in Moscow; she graduated from Moscow State University
's school of journalism in 1980. While there, she defended a thesis about the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva
and married fellow student Alexander Politkovsky. They had two children, Vera and Ilya. At first Alexander was more well-known, joining TV journalist Vladislav Listyev
as one of the hosts on the late-night TV programme Vzglyad. Apart from her childhood years, Politkovskaya spent no more than a few weeks outside of Russia at any one time, even when her life came under threat. She acquired a US passport, but never relinquished her Russian citizenship.
from 1982 to 1993 as a reporter and editor of the emergencies and accidents section. From 1994 to 1999, she worked as the assistant chief editor of Obshchaya Gazeta, headed by Yegor Yakovlev
, where she wrote frequently about social problems—particularly the plight of refugees. From June 1999 to 2006, she wrote columns for the biweekly Novaya gazeta
, a newspaper with strong investigative reporting that was critical of the new post-1991 regime from the outset. She published several award-winning books about Chechnya
, life in Russia, and President Putin's regime
, including Putin's Russia
.
". She talked to officials, the military and the police and also frequently visited hospitals and refugee camps, in Chechnya and in the neighbouring Ingushetia, to interview those injured and uprooted by the renewed fighting.
In numerous articles critical of the war in Chechnya and the pro-Russian regime there, Politkovskaya described alleged abuses committed by Russian military forces, Chechen rebels, and the Russian-backed administration led by Akhmad Kadyrov
and his son Ramzan Kadyrov
. She also chronicled human rights abuses and policy failures elsewhere in the North Caucasus
. In one characteristic instance in 1999, she not only wrote about the plight of an ethnically-mixed old peoples' home under bombardment in Grozny
, but helped to secure the safe evacuation of its elderly inhabitants, with the aid of her newspaper and public support. Her articles, many of which form the basis of A Dirty War (2001) and A Small Corner of Hell (2003), depict a conflict that brutalised both Chechen fighters and conscript soldiers in the federal army, and created hell for the civilians caught between them. As Politkovskaya reported, the order supposedly restored under the Kadyrovs became a regime of endemic torture, abduction, and murder, by either the new Chechen authorities or the various federal forces based in Chechnya. One of her last investigations was into the alleged mass poisoning of Chechen school children by a strong and unknown chemical substance which incapacitated them for many months.
(later subtitled Life in a Failing Democracy), a broader account of her views and experiences after former KGB
lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin
became Boris Yeltsin
's Prime Minister, and then succeeded him as President of Russia. This included Putin's pursuit of the Second Chechen War
. In the book, she accused the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) of stifling all civil liberties in order to establish a Soviet-style dictatorship, but admitted
"People often tell me that I am a pessimist, that I don't believe in the strength of the Russian people, that I am obsessive in my opposition to Putin and see nothing beyond that", she opens an essay titled "Am I Afraid?", finishing it—and the book—with the words "If anybody thinks they can take comfort from the 'optimistic' forecast, let them do so. It is certainly the easier way, but it is the death sentence for our grandchildren."
posthumously published Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary, containing extracts from her notebook and other writings. Subtitled A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia, the book gives her account of the period from December 2003 to August 2005, including what she described as "the death of Russian parliamentary democracy", the Beslan school hostage crisis
, and the "winter and summer of discontent" from January to August 2005. Because she was murdered "while translation was being completed, final editing had to go ahead without her help", wrote translator Arch Tait in a note to the book.
"Who killed Anna and who lay beyond her killer remains unknown", wrote Jon Snow
, the main news anchor for the United Kingdom
's Channel 4
in his foreword to the book's UK edition. "Her murder robbed too many of us of absolutely vital sources of information and contact", he concluded, "Yet it may, ultimately, be seen to have at least helped prepare the way for the unmasking of the dark forces at the heart of Russia's current being. I must confess that I finished reading A Russian Diary feeling that it should be taken up and dropped from the air in vast quantities throughout the length and breadth of Mother Russia, for all her people to read."
of 2002. When the Beslan school hostage crisis
erupted in the North Caucasus
in early September 2004, Politkovskaya attempted to fly there to act as a mediator, but was taken off the plane, acutely ill, in Rostov-on-Don
(see Poisoning).
officials might attend, in case the organisers were suspected of harbouring sympathies toward her. Despite this, many top officials allegedly talked to her when she was writing articles or conducting investigations. According to one of her articles, they did talk to her, "but only when they weren't likely to be observed: outside in crowds, or in houses that they approached by different routes, like spies". She also claimed that the Kremlin tried to block her access to information and discredit her:
Politkovskaya herself did not deny being afraid, but felt responsible and concerned for her informants. While attending a December 2005 conference on the freedom of the press
in Vienna
organised by Reporters Without Borders
, she said "People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think. In fact, one can even get killed for giving me information. I am not the only one in danger. I have examples that prove it." She often received death threats as a result of her work, including being threatened with rape and experiencing a mock execution
after being arrested by the military in Chechnya.
. She was investigating complaints from 90 Chechen families about "punitive raids" by federal forces. She interviewed a Chechen grandmother from a village of Tovzeni, Rosita, who endured 12 days of beatings, electric shocks, and confinement in a pit. The men who arrested Rosita presented themselves as FSB employees. The torturers requested a ransom from Rosita's relatives, who negotiated a smaller amount that they were able to pay. Another interviewee described killings and rapes of Chechen men in a "concentration camp with a commercial streak" near the village of Khatuni.
Upon leaving the camp, Politkovskaya was detained, interrogated, beaten, and humiliated by Russian troops: "the young officers tortured me, skillfully hitting my sore spots. They looked through my children's pictures, making a point of saying what they would like to do to the kids. This went on for about three hours." She was subjected to a mock execution
using a BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket system
, then poisoned with a cup of tea that made her vomit. Her tape records were confiscated. She described her mock execution:
After the mock execution
, the Russian lieutenant colonel said to her: "Here's the banya
. Take off your clothes." Seeing that his words had no effect, he got very angry: "A real lieutenant colonel is courting you, and you say no, you militant bitch."
In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights
found the Russian Federation responsible for the forced disappearance
of a suspected Ingush
militant, Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev
. Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, the commander of the Russian Caucasus
deployment mentioned by Politkovskaya's camp guide as the one who ordered captured militants to be kept in the pits, was filmed as he ordered Yandiyev to be executed.
(North Ossetia), Politkovskaya fell violently ill and lost consciousness after drinking tea. She had reportedly been poison
ed, with some accusing the former Soviet secret police poison facility.
, following e-mail threats that a police officer whom she had accused of atrocities against civilians in Chechnya was looking to take revenge. Corporal Sergei Lapin was arrested and charged in 2002, but the case against him was closed the following year. In 2005, Lapin was convicted and jailed for the torture and subsequent disappearance of a Chechen civilian detainee, the case exposed by Politkovskaya in her article "Disappearing People". A former fellow officer of Lapin's was among the suspects in Politkovskaya's murder, on the theory that the motive might have been revenge for her part in Lapin's conviction.
, then Prime Minister of Chechnya. One of his assistants said to her, "Someone ought to have shot you back in Moscow, right on the street, like they do in your Moscow". Ramzan repeated after him: "You're an enemy. To be shot...." On the day of her murder, said Novaya Gazetas chief editor Dmitry Muratov, Politkovskaya had planned to file a lengthy story on the torture practices believed to be used by the Chechen security detachments known as Kadyrovites. In her final interview, she described Kadyrov—now president of Chechnya—as the "Chechen Stalin
of our days".
Politkovskaya was found dead in the lift
of her block of flats in central Moscow on 7 October 2006. She was shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, and once in the head at point-blank range.
The funeral was held on 10 October 2006 at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery
in the outskirts of Moscow. Before Politkovskaya was laid to rest, more than one thousand mourners filed past her coffin to pay their last respects. Dozens of Politkovskaya's colleagues, public figures, and admirers of her work gathered at the cemetery. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony. Politkovskaya was buried near her father, who had died shortly before her. There was widespread international reaction to the assassination
. Some of her colleagues and friends accused the Russian authorities of negligence in doing nothing to prevent her murder, or even of actual involvement in her assassination.
In May 2007, a large posthumous collection of Anna's articles, entitled With Good Reason, was published by Novaya gazeta
and launched at the Gorbachev Foundation
in Moscow The event came soon after the birth of Anna's namesake grandchild: Vera's daughter was named Anna in honour of her grandmother. A few months later, 10 men were detained on suspicion of various degrees of involvement Politkovskaya's murder. Four of them were brought before the Moscow District Military Court in October 2008.
On 25 November 2008, it was reported that Politkovskaya's murder might have been ordered by a politician inside Russia. Murad Musayev, a lawyer for the men on trial, told journalists that the case notes—as one of the interpretations of the crime—mentioned that a politician, based in Russia (but not named in those notes), was behind her death.
On 5 December 2008, Sergei Sokolov, a senior editor of Novaya Gazeta, testified in court that he had received information (from sources he would not name) that defendant Dzhabrail Makhmudov was an agent of the FSB. He said Makhmudov's uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who was serving a 12-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a Ukrainian businessman, also worked for the FSB.
Russia's Investigative Committee
—with help of the Belgian
police—arrested Rustam Makhmudov, the man suspected of killing Anna Politkovskaya, after he was detained in the Chechen Republic
and transported to Moscow for questioning.
and Anna Stavitskaya, and senior Novaya gazeta editor Sergei Sokolov gave their reaction to the trial at a press conference in Moscow. In his comments on the end of the trial, Andrew McIntosh
, Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
's Sub-Committee on the Media and Rapporteur
on media freedom, expressed frustration at what he perceived to be a lack of progress in investigating the murder, or the inability of the Russian authorities to find her killers:
Before the trial ended, Stanislav Markelov
, a lawyer who had investigated many of the abuses documented by Politkovskaya, was assassinated in Moscow on 19 January 2009 Journalist Anastasia Baburova
, who was with Markelov at the time, died later of injuries sustained while trying to intervene. Baburova was a freelance contributor to Novaya gazeta, and Markelov represented the newspaper on many occasions. In November 2009, the first public results of the investigation into the double shooting suggested that the murders had no immediate connection to the Politkovskaya assassination.
More closely related to Politkovskaya's work as a journalist was the 15 July 2009 murder of Natalia Estemirova. A board member of the Memorial
human rights society and one of Politkovskaya's key informants, guides, and colleagues in Chechnya, Estemirova was abducted in Grozny and found dead, several hours later, in the neighbouring Republic of Ingushetia.
All three murders highlighted the impunity with which such activists were being killed (see List of journalists killed in Russia). After the first killing, Novaya gazeta chief editor Muratov asked publicly for his journalists to be trained in self-defence, with firearms if necessary. When Estemirova's death was followed that August by the killing of two more human-rights activists in Grozny—Zarema Sadulayeva
and her husband Umar Dzhabrailov—Novaya gazeta announced it could no longer take the risk of sending its journalists to Chechnya.
The Chechen authorities expressed their offence at this "slur". In an interview with Radio Liberty, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov
voiced statements about Estemirova that contradicted his earlier expressions of public concern and regret. She was a woman, he said, who had "never possessed any honour, dignity or conscience".
On 5 August 2009, the prosecution service's objection to the acquittals in the Politkovskaya trial was upheld by the Supreme Court, and a new trial was ordered.
In August 2011, Russian prosecutors claimed they were close to solving the murder after detaining Dmitry Pavliuchenkov, a former policeman, who they alleged was the principal organiser. The following month Kommersant Daily reported that according to Pavlyuchenkov, he was acting on instructions from businessman and Putin critic Boris Berezovsky.
A bitter taste of Freedom was shown at the 27. Warsaw International Film Festival
where it won the Best Documentary Feature Award. From the festival's
programme:
The first Anna Politkovskaya Award was presented to her friend and colleague Estemirova. She was Politkovskaya's most frequent companion during her travel and journalistic investigations in Chechnya, shedding light on human rights abuses for Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights organisation. Estemirova was abducted and murdered on 15 July 2009. Two witnesses reported they saw Estemirova being pushed into a car shouting that she was being abducted. Her remains were found with bullet wounds in the head and chest area at 4:30 p.m. in woodland 100 metres (328.1 ft) away from the federal road "Kavkaz" near the village of Gazi-Yurt, Ingushetia
.
The recipient of the second award was Malalai Joya
, the youngest elected member of Afghanistan's national parliament in 2005, who spoke out against ex-mujahadeen warlords at the age of 25.
The 2009 award was given to the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality
in Iran, a grassroots campaign that aims to collect signatures of Iranian nationals to a petition demanding an end to legal discrimination against women in Iran. Although campaigning peacefully and legally, activists often face regular harassment and persecution and are subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and charged with acting "against national security".
The 2011 award was given to Razan Zaitouneh
.
A group of more than 100 influential cultural and political leaders have joined the Award's Committee of Supporters, including President Vaclav Havel
, Archbishop Desmond Tutu
and Nobel laureates Mairead Maguire and Shirin Ebadi
.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, author, and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
activist known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....
and then-President of Russia Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
. On 7 October 2006 she was shot and killed in the lift of her block of flats, an unsolved assassination that continues to attract international attention.
Politkovskaya made her reputation reporting from Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
. Her post-1999 articles about conditions in Chechnya were turned into several books; Russian readers' main access to her investigations and publications was through Novaya gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....
, a Russian newspaper known for its often-critical investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs. From 2000 onwards, she received numerous international awards for her work. In 2004, she published a personal account: Putin's Russia.
Early life
Politkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1958. Her parents, diplomats
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
at the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, were Ukrainian. Politkovskaya grew up in Moscow; she graduated from Moscow State University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
's school of journalism in 1980. While there, she defended a thesis about the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva was a Russian and Soviet poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russian literature. She lived through and wrote of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Moscow famine that followed it. In an attempt to save her daughter Irina from...
and married fellow student Alexander Politkovsky. They had two children, Vera and Ilya. At first Alexander was more well-known, joining TV journalist Vladislav Listyev
Vladislav Listyev
-External links:* - IFEX*...
as one of the hosts on the late-night TV programme Vzglyad. Apart from her childhood years, Politkovskaya spent no more than a few weeks outside of Russia at any one time, even when her life came under threat. She acquired a US passport, but never relinquished her Russian citizenship.
Journalistic work
Politkovskaya worked for IzvestiaIzvestia
Izvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat . In the context of newspapers it is usually translated as "news" or "reports".-Origin:The newspaper began as the News of the...
from 1982 to 1993 as a reporter and editor of the emergencies and accidents section. From 1994 to 1999, she worked as the assistant chief editor of Obshchaya Gazeta, headed by Yegor Yakovlev
Yegor Yakovlev
Yegor Vladimirovich Yakovlev was one of the founders of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin's policy of glasnost, and one of the most respected Russian journalists....
, where she wrote frequently about social problems—particularly the plight of refugees. From June 1999 to 2006, she wrote columns for the biweekly Novaya gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....
, a newspaper with strong investigative reporting that was critical of the new post-1991 regime from the outset. She published several award-winning books about Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
, life in Russia, and President Putin's regime
Regime
The word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature.-Politics:...
, including Putin's Russia
Putin's Russia
Putin's Russia is a non-fiction book by the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya about life in modern Russia.Politkovskaya argues that Russia still has aspects of a police state or mafia state, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. In a review, Angus Macqueen wrote: Politkovskaya describes...
.
Reports from Chechnya
Politkovskaya won a number of awards for her work. She used each of these occasions to urge greater concern and responsibility by Western governments that, after the September 11 attacks on the United States, welcomed Putin's contribution to their "War on TerrorWar on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
". She talked to officials, the military and the police and also frequently visited hospitals and refugee camps, in Chechnya and in the neighbouring Ingushetia, to interview those injured and uprooted by the renewed fighting.
In numerous articles critical of the war in Chechnya and the pro-Russian regime there, Politkovskaya described alleged abuses committed by Russian military forces, Chechen rebels, and the Russian-backed administration led by Akhmad Kadyrov
Akhmad Kadyrov
Hajji Akhmad Abdulkhamidovich Kadyrov , also spelled Akhmat, was the Chief Mufti of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in the 1990s during and after the First Chechen War...
and his son Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is the President of Chechnya and a former Chechen rebel.Ramzan is a son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May 2004. In February 2007 Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as President, shortly after he had turned 30, which is the minimum age for the post...
. She also chronicled human rights abuses and policy failures elsewhere in the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
. In one characteristic instance in 1999, she not only wrote about the plight of an ethnically-mixed old peoples' home under bombardment in Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...
, but helped to secure the safe evacuation of its elderly inhabitants, with the aid of her newspaper and public support. Her articles, many of which form the basis of A Dirty War (2001) and A Small Corner of Hell (2003), depict a conflict that brutalised both Chechen fighters and conscript soldiers in the federal army, and created hell for the civilians caught between them. As Politkovskaya reported, the order supposedly restored under the Kadyrovs became a regime of endemic torture, abduction, and murder, by either the new Chechen authorities or the various federal forces based in Chechnya. One of her last investigations was into the alleged mass poisoning of Chechen school children by a strong and unknown chemical substance which incapacitated them for many months.
Criticism of Vladimir Putin and FSB
After Politkovskaya became widely known in the West, she was commissioned to write Putin's RussiaPutin's Russia
Putin's Russia is a non-fiction book by the late Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya about life in modern Russia.Politkovskaya argues that Russia still has aspects of a police state or mafia state, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin. In a review, Angus Macqueen wrote: Politkovskaya describes...
(later subtitled Life in a Failing Democracy), a broader account of her views and experiences after former KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
lieutenant colonel Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
became Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
's Prime Minister, and then succeeded him as President of Russia. This included Putin's pursuit of the Second Chechen War
Second Chechen War
The Second Chechen War, in a later phase better known as the War in the North Caucasus, was launched by the Russian Federation starting 26 August 1999, in response to the Invasion of Dagestan by the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade ....
. In the book, she accused the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) of stifling all civil liberties in order to establish a Soviet-style dictatorship, but admitted
[It] is we who are responsible for Putin's policies ... [s]ociety has shown limitless apathy ... [a]s the ChekistsShe also wrote:ChekismChekism is a term used by some historians and political scientists to emphasize the omnipotence and omnipresence of secret political police in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia...
have become entrenched in power, we have let them see our fear, and thereby have only intensified their urge to treat us like cattle. The KGB respects only the strong. The weak it devours. We of all people ought to know that.
We are hurtling back into a Soviet abyss, into an information vacuum that spells death from our own ignorance. All we have left is the internet, where information is still freely available. For the rest, if you want to go on working as a journalist, it's total servility to Putin. Otherwise, it can be death, the bullet, poison, or trial—whatever our special services, Putin's guard dogs, see fit.
"People often tell me that I am a pessimist, that I don't believe in the strength of the Russian people, that I am obsessive in my opposition to Putin and see nothing beyond that", she opens an essay titled "Am I Afraid?", finishing it—and the book—with the words "If anybody thinks they can take comfort from the 'optimistic' forecast, let them do so. It is certainly the easier way, but it is the death sentence for our grandchildren."
A Russian Diary
In May 2007, Random HouseRandom House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
posthumously published Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary, containing extracts from her notebook and other writings. Subtitled A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia, the book gives her account of the period from December 2003 to August 2005, including what she described as "the death of Russian parliamentary democracy", the Beslan school hostage crisis
Beslan school hostage crisis
The Beslan school hostage crisis of early September 2004 was a three-day hostage-taking of over 1,100 people which ended in the deaths of over 380...
, and the "winter and summer of discontent" from January to August 2005. Because she was murdered "while translation was being completed, final editing had to go ahead without her help", wrote translator Arch Tait in a note to the book.
"Who killed Anna and who lay beyond her killer remains unknown", wrote Jon Snow
Jon Snow
Jon Snow is an English journalist and presenter, currently employed by ITN. He is best known for presenting Channel 4 News.He was Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University from 2001 to 2008.-Early life:...
, the main news anchor for the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
in his foreword to the book's UK edition. "Her murder robbed too many of us of absolutely vital sources of information and contact", he concluded, "Yet it may, ultimately, be seen to have at least helped prepare the way for the unmasking of the dark forces at the heart of Russia's current being. I must confess that I finished reading A Russian Diary feeling that it should be taken up and dropped from the air in vast quantities throughout the length and breadth of Mother Russia, for all her people to read."
Attempted hostage negotiations
Politkovskaya was closely involved in attempts to negotiate the release of hostages in the Moscow theater hostage crisisMoscow theater hostage crisis
The Moscow theater hostage crisis, also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege, was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater on 23 October 2002 by some 40 to 50 armed Chechens who claimed allegiance to the Islamist militant separatist movement in Chechnya. They took 850 hostages and demanded the...
of 2002. When the Beslan school hostage crisis
Beslan school hostage crisis
The Beslan school hostage crisis of early September 2004 was a three-day hostage-taking of over 1,100 people which ended in the deaths of over 380...
erupted in the North Caucasus
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
in early September 2004, Politkovskaya attempted to fly there to act as a mediator, but was taken off the plane, acutely ill, in Rostov-on-Don
Rostov-on-Don
-History:The mouth of the Don River has been of great commercial and cultural importance since the ancient times. It was the site of the Greek colony Tanais, of the Genoese fort Tana, and of the Turkish fortress Azak...
(see Poisoning).
Relationships with Russian authorities
In Moscow, Politkovskaya was not invited to press conferences or gatherings that KremlinKremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
officials might attend, in case the organisers were suspected of harbouring sympathies toward her. Despite this, many top officials allegedly talked to her when she was writing articles or conducting investigations. According to one of her articles, they did talk to her, "but only when they weren't likely to be observed: outside in crowds, or in houses that they approached by different routes, like spies". She also claimed that the Kremlin tried to block her access to information and discredit her:
I will not go into the other joys of the path I have chosen, the poisoning, the arrests, the threats in letters and over the Internet, the telephoned death threats, the weekly summons to the prosecutor general's office to sign statements about practically every article I write (the first question being, "How and where did you obtain this information?"). Of course I don't like the constant derisive articles about me that appear in other newspapers and on Internet sites presenting me as the madwoman of MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. I find it disgusting to live this way. I would like a bit more understanding.
Death threats
After Politkovskaya's murder, Vyacheslav Izmailov, her colleague at Novaya gazeta—a military man who had helped negotiate the release of dozens of hostages in Chechnya before 1999—said that he knew of at least nine previous occasions when Politkovskaya had faced death, commenting "Frontline soldiers do not usually go into battle so often and survive".Politkovskaya herself did not deny being afraid, but felt responsible and concerned for her informants. While attending a December 2005 conference on the freedom of the press
Freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various electronic media and published materials...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
organised by Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...
, she said "People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think. In fact, one can even get killed for giving me information. I am not the only one in danger. I have examples that prove it." She often received death threats as a result of her work, including being threatened with rape and experiencing a mock execution
Mock execution
A mock execution is a stratagem in which a victim is deliberately but falsely made to feel that his execution or that of another person is imminent or is taking place. It may be staged for an audience or a subject who is made to believe that he is being led to his own execution...
after being arrested by the military in Chechnya.
Detention in Chechnya
Early in 2001, Politkovskaya was detained by military officials in the southern mountain village of KhatuniKhatuni
Khatuni is a village in the Vedenskij district of Chechnya....
. She was investigating complaints from 90 Chechen families about "punitive raids" by federal forces. She interviewed a Chechen grandmother from a village of Tovzeni, Rosita, who endured 12 days of beatings, electric shocks, and confinement in a pit. The men who arrested Rosita presented themselves as FSB employees. The torturers requested a ransom from Rosita's relatives, who negotiated a smaller amount that they were able to pay. Another interviewee described killings and rapes of Chechen men in a "concentration camp with a commercial streak" near the village of Khatuni.
Upon leaving the camp, Politkovskaya was detained, interrogated, beaten, and humiliated by Russian troops: "the young officers tortured me, skillfully hitting my sore spots. They looked through my children's pictures, making a point of saying what they would like to do to the kids. This went on for about three hours." She was subjected to a mock execution
Mock execution
A mock execution is a stratagem in which a victim is deliberately but falsely made to feel that his execution or that of another person is imminent or is taking place. It may be staged for an audience or a subject who is made to believe that he is being led to his own execution...
using a BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket system
Multiple rocket launcher
A multiple rocket launcher is a type of unguided rocket artillery system. Like other rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers are less accurate and have a much lower rate of fire than batteries of traditional artillery guns...
, then poisoned with a cup of tea that made her vomit. Her tape records were confiscated. She described her mock execution:
A lieutenant colonel with a swarthy face and dull dark bulging eyes said in a businesslike tone: "Let's go. I'm going to shoot you." He led me out of the tent into complete darkness. The nights here are impenetrable. After we walked for a while, he said, "Ready or not, here I come." Something burst with pulsating fire around me, screeching, roaring, and growling. The lieutenant colonel was very happy when I crouched in fright. It turned out that he had led me right under the "Grad" rocket launcher at the moment it was fired.
After the mock execution
Mock execution
A mock execution is a stratagem in which a victim is deliberately but falsely made to feel that his execution or that of another person is imminent or is taking place. It may be staged for an audience or a subject who is made to believe that he is being led to his own execution...
, the Russian lieutenant colonel said to her: "Here's the banya
Banya (sauna)
Banya in Russian can refer to any kind of steam bath, but usually to the Russian type of sauna. In Bulgarian, banya usually refers to a bath and bathing...
. Take off your clothes." Seeing that his words had no effect, he got very angry: "A real lieutenant colonel is courting you, and you say no, you militant bitch."
In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
found the Russian Federation responsible for the forced disappearance
Forced disappearance
In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...
of a suspected Ingush
Ingush people
The Ingush are a native ethnic group of the North Caucasus, mostly inhabiting the Russian republic of Ingushetia. They refer to themselves as Ghalghai . The Ingush are predominantly Sunni Muslims and speak the Ingush language...
militant, Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev
Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev
Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev was a 25-year-old Ingush insurgent fighter, who was forcibly disappeared in February 2000 after being filmed in the company of Russian Army general ordering him taken away and shot...
. Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, the commander of the Russian Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
deployment mentioned by Politkovskaya's camp guide as the one who ordered captured militants to be kept in the pits, was filmed as he ordered Yandiyev to be executed.
Poisoning
While flying south in September 2004 to help negotiate with those who had taken over a thousand hostages in a school in BeslanBeslan
Beslan is a town and the administrative center of Pravoberezhny District of the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, Russia. In terms of population, Beslan is the third largest town in the republic behind Vladikavkaz and Mozdok...
(North Ossetia), Politkovskaya fell violently ill and lost consciousness after drinking tea. She had reportedly been poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ed, with some accusing the former Soviet secret police poison facility.
Threats from OMON officer
In 2001, Politkovskaya fled to ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, following e-mail threats that a police officer whom she had accused of atrocities against civilians in Chechnya was looking to take revenge. Corporal Sergei Lapin was arrested and charged in 2002, but the case against him was closed the following year. In 2005, Lapin was convicted and jailed for the torture and subsequent disappearance of a Chechen civilian detainee, the case exposed by Politkovskaya in her article "Disappearing People". A former fellow officer of Lapin's was among the suspects in Politkovskaya's murder, on the theory that the motive might have been revenge for her part in Lapin's conviction.
Conflict with Ramzan Kadyrov
In 2004, Politkovskaya had a conversation with Ramzan KadyrovRamzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is the President of Chechnya and a former Chechen rebel.Ramzan is a son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May 2004. In February 2007 Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as President, shortly after he had turned 30, which is the minimum age for the post...
, then Prime Minister of Chechnya. One of his assistants said to her, "Someone ought to have shot you back in Moscow, right on the street, like they do in your Moscow". Ramzan repeated after him: "You're an enemy. To be shot...." On the day of her murder, said Novaya Gazetas chief editor Dmitry Muratov, Politkovskaya had planned to file a lengthy story on the torture practices believed to be used by the Chechen security detachments known as Kadyrovites. In her final interview, she described Kadyrov—now president of Chechnya—as the "Chechen Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
of our days".
Murder, investigation and trial
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
of her block of flats in central Moscow on 7 October 2006. She was shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, and once in the head at point-blank range.
The funeral was held on 10 October 2006 at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery
Troyekurovskoye Cemetery
The Troyekurovskoye Cemetery , sometimes called the Novo-Kuntsevskoye Cemetery , is a Russian cemetery. It is located next to the Moscow Highway Ring Road, in the former village of Troyekurovo, on the edge of western Moscow...
in the outskirts of Moscow. Before Politkovskaya was laid to rest, more than one thousand mourners filed past her coffin to pay their last respects. Dozens of Politkovskaya's colleagues, public figures, and admirers of her work gathered at the cemetery. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony. Politkovskaya was buried near her father, who had died shortly before her. There was widespread international reaction to the assassination
International reaction to the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya
The assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist, writer, and recipient of numerous international awards, took place on Saturday, 7 October 2006. She was found shot dead in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow...
. Some of her colleagues and friends accused the Russian authorities of negligence in doing nothing to prevent her murder, or even of actual involvement in her assassination.
In May 2007, a large posthumous collection of Anna's articles, entitled With Good Reason, was published by Novaya gazeta
Novaya Gazeta
Novaya Gazeta is a Russian newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs....
and launched at the Gorbachev Foundation
Gorbachev Foundation
The Gorbachev Foundation is a non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, founded by the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1991 and began its work since January 1992. The foundation is active in researching the Perestroika era, current issues of Russian...
in Moscow The event came soon after the birth of Anna's namesake grandchild: Vera's daughter was named Anna in honour of her grandmother. A few months later, 10 men were detained on suspicion of various degrees of involvement Politkovskaya's murder. Four of them were brought before the Moscow District Military Court in October 2008.
Trial
Three men were charged with directly aiding Politkovskaya's killer, who was allegedly the brother of two of the suspects. There was insufficient evidence to charge the fourth man—an FSB colonel—with the murder, though he was suspected of a leading role in its organisation; he stood trial at the same time for another offence. The case was held before a jury (a rare occurrence in Russia) and, after the jurors insisted, was open to the press and public.On 25 November 2008, it was reported that Politkovskaya's murder might have been ordered by a politician inside Russia. Murad Musayev, a lawyer for the men on trial, told journalists that the case notes—as one of the interpretations of the crime—mentioned that a politician, based in Russia (but not named in those notes), was behind her death.
On 5 December 2008, Sergei Sokolov, a senior editor of Novaya Gazeta, testified in court that he had received information (from sources he would not name) that defendant Dzhabrail Makhmudov was an agent of the FSB. He said Makhmudov's uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who was serving a 12-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a Ukrainian businessman, also worked for the FSB.
Russia's Investigative Committee
Investigative Committee of Russia
The Investigative Committee of Russian Federation is the main federal investigating authority in Russia, formed in place of the Investigative Committee of The Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. it began to operate on January 15, 2011...
—with help of the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
police—arrested Rustam Makhmudov, the man suspected of killing Anna Politkovskaya, after he was detained in the Chechen Republic
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
and transported to Moscow for questioning.
Following the acquittal
After all three men were acquitted of Politkovskaya's murder in February 2009, her children Vera and Ilya, their lawyers Karinna MoskalenkoKarinna Moskalenko
Karinna Akopovna Moskalenko , is Russia’s leading human rights lawyer, defending, amongst others, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov and Alexander Litvinenko...
and Anna Stavitskaya, and senior Novaya gazeta editor Sergei Sokolov gave their reaction to the trial at a press conference in Moscow. In his comments on the end of the trial, Andrew McIntosh
Andrew McIntosh, Baron McIntosh of Haringey
Andrew Robert McIntosh, Baron McIntosh of Haringey PC was a British Labour politician and last elected Principal of the Working Men's College....
, Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...
's Sub-Committee on the Media and Rapporteur
Rapporteur
Rapporteur is used in international and European legal and political contexts to refer to a person appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue or a situation....
on media freedom, expressed frustration at what he perceived to be a lack of progress in investigating the murder, or the inability of the Russian authorities to find her killers:
Two years ago, in its Resolution 1535 (2007), the Assembly called on the Russian Parliament to closely monitor the progress in the criminal investigations regarding the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and hold the authorities accountable for any failures to investigate or prosecute. The closure of the trial yesterday can only be regarded as a blatant failure. I call on the Russian authorities and Parliament to relaunch a proper investigation and shed light on this murder, which undermines not only freedom of expression in Russia, but also its democratic foundation based on the rule of law. There are no excuses for these flawed investigations into murders of politically critical journalists writing against corruption and crime within government, such as the murders of Georgy Gongadze in Ukraine in 2000 and Paul KlebnikovPaul KlebnikovPaul Klebnikov was a Russian-American journalist and historian of Russian history. He worked for Forbes Magazine for over 10 years and at the time of his death was Chief editor of the Russian edition. His murder in Moscow in 2004 was seen as a blow against investigative journalism in Russia...
in Moscow in 2004.
Before the trial ended, Stanislav Markelov
Stanislav Markelov
Stanislav Yuryevich Markelov was a human rights lawyer and journalist who wrote investigative articles on Chechnya. Markelov had been the attorney for the family of Elza Kungaeva, a young Chechen woman killed by Russian colonel Yuri Budanov, who was released from prison in mid-January, 15 months...
, a lawyer who had investigated many of the abuses documented by Politkovskaya, was assassinated in Moscow on 19 January 2009 Journalist Anastasia Baburova
Anastasia Baburova
Anastasia Eduardivna Baburova was a journalist for Novaya Gazeta and a student of journalism at Moscow State University. She was born in Sevastopol, Ukraine.A member of Autonomous Action, she investigated activities of neo-Nazi groups...
, who was with Markelov at the time, died later of injuries sustained while trying to intervene. Baburova was a freelance contributor to Novaya gazeta, and Markelov represented the newspaper on many occasions. In November 2009, the first public results of the investigation into the double shooting suggested that the murders had no immediate connection to the Politkovskaya assassination.
More closely related to Politkovskaya's work as a journalist was the 15 July 2009 murder of Natalia Estemirova. A board member of the Memorial
Memorial (society)
Memorial is an international historical and civil rights society that operates in a number of post-Soviet states. It focuses on recording and publicising the Soviet Union's totalitarian past, but also monitors human rights in post-Soviet states....
human rights society and one of Politkovskaya's key informants, guides, and colleagues in Chechnya, Estemirova was abducted in Grozny and found dead, several hours later, in the neighbouring Republic of Ingushetia.
All three murders highlighted the impunity with which such activists were being killed (see List of journalists killed in Russia). After the first killing, Novaya gazeta chief editor Muratov asked publicly for his journalists to be trained in self-defence, with firearms if necessary. When Estemirova's death was followed that August by the killing of two more human-rights activists in Grozny—Zarema Sadulayeva
Zarema Sadulayeva
Zarema Sadulayeva was a Russian children's activist and head of the aid organization, Let's Save the Generation, based in Chechnya. She and her husband, Alek Dzhabrailov ,, were found murdered in August 2009.Zarema Sadulayeva was head of the Let's Save the Generation charity of Chechnya...
and her husband Umar Dzhabrailov—Novaya gazeta announced it could no longer take the risk of sending its journalists to Chechnya.
The Chechen authorities expressed their offence at this "slur". In an interview with Radio Liberty, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov is the President of Chechnya and a former Chechen rebel.Ramzan is a son of former Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May 2004. In February 2007 Kadyrov replaced Alu Alkhanov as President, shortly after he had turned 30, which is the minimum age for the post...
voiced statements about Estemirova that contradicted his earlier expressions of public concern and regret. She was a woman, he said, who had "never possessed any honour, dignity or conscience".
On 5 August 2009, the prosecution service's objection to the acquittals in the Politkovskaya trial was upheld by the Supreme Court, and a new trial was ordered.
In August 2011, Russian prosecutors claimed they were close to solving the murder after detaining Dmitry Pavliuchenkov, a former policeman, who they alleged was the principal organiser. The following month Kommersant Daily reported that according to Pavlyuchenkov, he was acting on instructions from businessman and Putin critic Boris Berezovsky.
Documentary
- 2008, documentary by Masha Novikova Anna, Seven Years on the Frontline; 78 min., the Netherlands.
- In 2008, SwissSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
directorFilm directorA film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Eric Bergkraut made a documentary, Letter to Anna, about Politkovskaya's life and death. It includes interviews with her son Ilya, her daughter Vera, her ex-husband Alexander Politkovsky, and others—such as businessman Boris Berezovsky and film-maker Andrei NekrasovAndrei NekrasovAndrei Lvovich Nekrasov is a Russian film and TV director from Saint Petersburg.Andrei Nekrasov studied acting and directing at the State Institute for Theater and Film in his native Saint Petersburg. He studied comparative literature and philosophy at the University of Paris, taking a master's...
.
- In 2011, Russian directorFilm directorA film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Marina GoldovskayaMarina GoldovskayaMarina Goldovskaya, is an eminent Russian born documentary cinematographer famed for her candid portrayal of people. She has documented many types of people including simple folk, seamstresses, a female astronaut, literary and artistic legends, as well as political leaders.The recipient of...
made the documentary A bitter taste of Freedom, a Swedish Russian American co-production. The title relates to an earlier documentary film by the same director, A taste of freedom (1991) which is about Russian life in the new, post-Soviet reality and features the Politkovsky family.
A bitter taste of Freedom was shown at the 27. Warsaw International Film Festival
Warsaw International Film Festival
Warsaw International Film Festival , also known as the Warsaw FilmFest, is a film festival held every October in Warsaw, Poland. The festival has been held every year since 1985....
where it won the Best Documentary Feature Award. From the festival's
Warsaw International Film Festival
Warsaw International Film Festival , also known as the Warsaw FilmFest, is a film festival held every October in Warsaw, Poland. The festival has been held every year since 1985....
programme:
"She was brave, she was bold, and she was beautiful. In her fearless quest to uncover the wrongdoings of the Russian State, Anna Politkovskaya inspired awe in some and fear in countless others. An investigative journalist for Moscow's liberal 'Novaya Gazeta', she was the only spokesperson for victims of Putin's government. Hers was a lonely voice, yet loud enough for the entire country to hear. It was too loud. At age 48 she was assassinated for simply doing her job. A documentary about the bravery of the human spirit. As the director says, it 'is especially important now, when the world is so full of cynicism and corruption, when we so desperately need more people with Anna's level of courage and integrity and commitment'."
Anna Politkovskaya Award
In 2007, to mark the first anniversary of Politkovskaya's murder, Reach All Women in War (RAW in WAR)—a human rights organisation which focuses on stopping violence against women in war and conflict—inaugurated the "Anna Politkovskaya Award". The award is intended to honour female human rights activists who, like Politkovskaya, live a life of courage and truth-telling in the face of grave danger, standing up for the victims of conflict, often at great personal risk.The first Anna Politkovskaya Award was presented to her friend and colleague Estemirova. She was Politkovskaya's most frequent companion during her travel and journalistic investigations in Chechnya, shedding light on human rights abuses for Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights organisation. Estemirova was abducted and murdered on 15 July 2009. Two witnesses reported they saw Estemirova being pushed into a car shouting that she was being abducted. Her remains were found with bullet wounds in the head and chest area at 4:30 p.m. in woodland 100 metres (328.1 ft) away from the federal road "Kavkaz" near the village of Gazi-Yurt, Ingushetia
Ingushetia
The Republic of Ingushetia is a federal subject of Russia , located in the North Caucasus region with its capital at Magas. In terms of area, the republic is the smallest of Russia's federal subjects except for the two federal cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg...
.
The recipient of the second award was Malalai Joya
Malalai Joya
Malalai Joya is an activist, writer and a former politician from Afghanistan. She served as a Parliamentarian in the National Assembly of Afghanistan from 2005 until early 2007, after being dismissed for publicly denouncing the presence of what she considered to be warlords and war criminals in...
, the youngest elected member of Afghanistan's national parliament in 2005, who spoke out against ex-mujahadeen warlords at the age of 25.
The 2009 award was given to the One Million Signatures Campaign for Equality
One Million Signatures
One Million Signatures for the Repeal of Discriminatory Laws , also known as Change for Equality, is a campaign by women in Iran to collect one million signatures in support of changing discriminatory laws against women in their country.Activists of the movement...
in Iran, a grassroots campaign that aims to collect signatures of Iranian nationals to a petition demanding an end to legal discrimination against women in Iran. Although campaigning peacefully and legally, activists often face regular harassment and persecution and are subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and charged with acting "against national security".
The 2011 award was given to Razan Zaitouneh
Razan Zaitouneh
Razan Zaitouneh is a Syrian human rights lawyer. Actively involved in the 2011 Syrian uprising, she has gone into hiding after being accused by the government of being a foreign agent. Her husband has been arrested. On 27 October 2011, she was awarded the 2011 Sakharov Prize jointly with four...
.
A group of more than 100 influential cultural and political leaders have joined the Award's Committee of Supporters, including President Vaclav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu
Desmond Mpilo Tutu is a South African activist and retired Anglican bishop who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid...
and Nobel laureates Mairead Maguire and Shirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer, a former judge and human rights activist and founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. On 10 October 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially women's,...
.
Awards
- 2001: "Golden Pen Prize" of the Russian Union of Journalists
- 2001: Amnesty InternationalAmnesty InternationalAmnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
Global Award for Human Rights Journalism - 2002: Norwegian Authors' Union Freedom of Expression Prize ("Ytringsfrihetsprisen")
- 2002: PEN American CenterPEN American CenterPEN American Center , founded in 1922 and based in New York City, works to advance literature, to defend free expression, and to foster international literary fellowship. The Center has a membership of 3,300 writers, editors, and translators...
Freedom to Write Award - 2002: International Women's Media FoundationInternational Women's Media FoundationThe International Women’s Media Foundation , located in Washington, DC, is a network of thousands of left-wing women journalists working internationally to elevate the status of women in the media. The IWMF has created groundbreaking programs to help women in the media develop practical solutions...
Courage in Journalism Award - 2003: Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of ReportageLettre Ulysses AwardThe Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage has been given annually since 2003 for the best texts in the genre of literary reportage, which must have been first published during the previous two years...
- 2003: Hermann Kesten MedalHermann Kesten MedalThe Hermann Kesten Medal , named after Hermann Kesten , is a prize awarded annually for outstanding efforts in support of persecuted writers according to the principles of the Charter of International P.E.N. In 1985, the P.E.N...
- 2004: Olof Palme PrizeOlof Palme PrizeThe Olof Palme Prize is an annual prize awarded for an outstanding achievement in the spirit of Olof Palme. The Prize consists of a diploma and 75,000 US dollars.-Receivers of the Olof Palme Prize :*1987 Cyril Ramaphosa...
(shared with Lyudmila AlexeyevaLyudmila AlexeyevaLyudmila Mikhailovna Alexeyeva is a Russian historian, human rights activist, founding member of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, and one of the few veterans of the Soviet dissident movement still active in modern Russia.-Soviet period:...
and Sergei KovalevSergei KovalevSergei Kovalev is a Russian human rights activist and politician and a former Soviet dissident and political prisoner.- Early career and arrest :...
) - 2004: Vázquez MontalbánManuel Vázquez MontalbánManuel Vázquez Montalbán was a prolific Spanish writer: journalist, novelist, poet, essayist, anthologue, prologist, humourist, critic, as well as a gastronome and a FC Barcelona supporter....
Award of International Journalism - 2005: Civil Courage PrizeCivil Courage PrizeThe Civil Courage Prize is a human rights award which is awarded to "steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk — rather than military valor." It is awarded by the Trustees of The Train Foundation annually and may be awarded posthumously....
(with Min Ko NaingMin Ko NaingPaw Oo Tun is the President of Universities Student Union of Burma and a leading democracy activist and dissident. He has spent the majority of the last 22 years imprisoned by the state for his opposition activities.-Biography:...
and Munir Said ThalibMunir Said ThalibMunir Said Thalib , affectionately known simply as "Munir", was one of Indonesia's most famous human rights and anti-corruption activist...
) - 2005: Prize for the Freedom and Future of the Media
- 2006: International Journalism Award named after Tiziano TerzaniTiziano TerzaniTiziano Terzani was an Italian journalist and writer, best known for his extensive knowledge of 20th century East Asia and for being one of the very few western reporters to witness both the fall of Saigon to the hands of the Vietcong and the fall of Phnom Pehn at the hands of the Khmer rouge in...
- 2007: UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom PrizeUNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom PrizeThe UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, created in 1997, honours a person, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger.The...
(awarded posthumously for the first time) - 2007: National Press Club/John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award (posthumous)
- 2007 Democracy Award to Spotlight Press Freedom by the National Endowment for DemocracyNational Endowment for DemocracyThe National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress...
,
External links
- “Anna Politkovskaya Award” Presented each year by RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) to women human rights defenders from war and conflict. The first Anna Politkovskaya Award recipient, in 2007, was Natalia Estemirova
- Book Festival readings, Anna Politkovskaya at the Edinburgh International Book FestivalEdinburgh International Book FestivalThe Edinburgh International Book Festival, is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square, in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital...
's audio recordings and transcriptions 2004–05 (translated to English, streaming audio) - Photo report from August 2008 Moscow rally dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Anna Politkovskaya's birth
- The Writer’s Conscience: Remembering Anna Politkovskaya & Russia’s Forgotten War, December 6, 2006, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City - audio
- Three Years Later Russia Looks the Same at Estonian Free Press
- Reach all Women in War (RAW in WAR)
- Politkovskaya writing about her Ukrainian descent in the Ukrainian edition of her book by Diokor Press