Friday, October 13, 2006

Anna Politkovskaya, Investigative Reporter

“Anna Politkovskaya died for us, but also because of us, because we hardly listened to her and because the people we elected are unfailingly indulgent towards the Russian authorities.”
André Glucksmann,
Philosopher.

Reporters without Borders writes of an interesting Russian journalist, recently gunned down in a lift in Russia ... After a minute’s silence, Politkovskaya’s colleagues spoke of her professionalism and determination as a journalist. “They killed her in order to silence her, but we will do everything to ensure that her words are read and bear witness to her commitment to freedom,” said Vera Michalsky, her editor and friend.

The Guardian Unlimited writes : If one word sums up the life and work of Anna Politkovskaya, Russia's foremost investigative reporter assassinated at the age of 48, it is bravery. She could have chosen another life. Born and raised in New York, the daughter of Ukrainian UN diplomats, she was part of a Soviet elite that looked after its own. As a child, she had the best of both worlds: her parents could smuggle banned books out of the country, so she could write her dissertation about whomever she pleased. She alighted upon a poet shunned by Moscow, the émigré Marina Tsvetayeva.

Her final unfinished article was published in the Independent Online this morning...

Dozens of files cross my desk every day. They are copies of criminal cases against people jailed for "terrorism" or refer to people who are still being investigated. Why have I put the word "terrorism" in quotation marks here?

Because the overwhelming majority of these people have been "fitted up" as terrorists by the authorities. In 2006 the practice of "fitting up" people as terrorists has supplanted any genuine anti-terrorist struggle. And it has allowed people who are revenge-minded to have their revenge - on so-called potential terrorists.

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