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Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya (Russian: Анна Степановна Политковская) (30 August 1958 – 7 October 2006) was a Russian journalist, author and human rights activist well known for her opposition to the Chechen conflict and then-Russian President Putin.[1][2] Politkovskaya made her name reporting from Chechnya, where many journalists and humanitarian workers have been kidnapped or killed.[citation needed] She was arrested and subjected to mock execution by Russian military forces there and poisoned on the way to participate in negotiations during the Beslan school hostage crisis, but survived and continued her reporting. She authored several books about the Chechen wars, as well as Putin's Russia, and received numerous prestigious international awards for her work. She was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment building on 7 October 2006.
[edit] Early lifePolitkovskaya was born Anna Mazepa in New York City in 1958 to Soviet Ukrainian parents, both of whom served as diplomats to the United Nations. She grew up in Moscow and graduated from the Moscow State University Department of Journalism in 1980. She defended a thesis about the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva. Politkovskaya was a citizen of both the United States of America and the Russian Federation.[3] [edit] Journalistic workPolitkovskaya worked for Izvestia from 1982 to 1993 and as a reporter, editor of emergencies/accidents section, and assistant chief editor of Obshchaya Gazeta led by Yegor Yakovlev (1994–1999). From June 1999 to 2006, she wrote columns for the biweekly Novaya Gazeta. She published several award-winning books about Chechnya, life in Russia, and President Putin's regime, including Putin's Russia.[4][5] [edit] Reports from ChechnyaPolitkovskaya was widely acclaimed for her reporting from Chechnya and won a number of prestigious awards for her work.[6][5] She frequently visited hospitals and refugee camps in Chechnya to interview the victims.[7] She said about herself that she was not an investigating magistrate but somebody who describes the life of the citizens for those who cannot see it for themselves, because what is shown on television and written about in the overwhelming majority of newspapers is emasculated and doused with ideology.[citation needed] Her numerous articles critical of the war in Chechnya described abuses committed by Russian military forces, Chechen rebels, and the Russian-backed Chechen administration led by Akhmad Kadyrov and his son Ramzan Kadyrov. Politkovskaya chronicled human rights abuses and policy failures in Chechnya and elsewhere in Russia's North Caucasus in several books on the subject, including A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya and A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya, which painted a picture of brutal war in which thousands of innocent citizens have been tortured, abducted or killed at the hands of Chechen or federal authorities.[4] One of her last investigations was the alleged mass poisoning of hundreds of Chechen school children by an unknown chemical substance of strong and prolonged action, by which they were incapacitated for many months.[8] [edit] Criticism of Vladimir Putin and FSBPolitkovskaya wrote a book, Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy, critical of Putin's federal presidency, including his pursuit of the Second Chechen War. In the book, she accused the Russian secret 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 Chekists 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." She also wrote: "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."[9] "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."[10][11][12][13][14][15] [edit] A Russian DiaryIn May 2007, Random House published A Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption, and Death in Putin's Russia, containing extracts from her notebook and other writings, in which she describes the poisoning on the plane to Rostov-on-Don on the way to the Beslan school hostage crisis and the worsening political situation in Russia.[citation needed] Because she was murdered "while translation was being completed, final editing had to go ahead without her help," translator Arch Tait writes in a note.[citation needed] "Who killed Anna and who lay beyond her killer remains unknown," UK Channel 4's main news anchor Jon Snow writes in the foreword to the book's UK edition. "Her murder robbed too many of us of absolutely vital sources of information and contact. 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."[citation needed] [edit] Attempted hostage negotiationsShe had, on several occasions, been involved in negotiating the release of hostages, including the Moscow theater hostage crisis of 2002 and the Beslan school hostage crisis of 2004.[16][17] [edit] Relationships with Russian state authoritiesIn Moscow, she was not invited to press conferences or gatherings that Kremlin officials might attend, in case the organizers were suspected of harboring 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".[4] She also claimed that the Kremlin tried to block her access to information and discredit her:[4]
[edit] Death threatsWhile attending a conference on the freedom of press organized by Reporters Without Borders in Vienna in December 2005, Politkovskaya 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."[18] 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.[19][20] [edit] Detention in ChechnyaDuring a reporting trip in 2001, Politkovskaya was detained by military officials in the Chechen village of Khottuni.[21] Politkovskaya followed the complaints from 90 Chechen families about "punitive raids" by federal forces. She interviewed a Chechen grandmother Rosita from a village of Tovzeni who endured 12 days of beatings, electric shock 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 Khottuni.[citation needed] 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 pictures, making a point of saying what they would like to do to the kids. This went on for about three hours[citation needed]." She was subjected to a mock execution using a multiple-launch rocket system BM-21 Grad, 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."[22] In 2006, Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, the commander of the Russian Kavkaz deployment mentioned by Politkovskaya's camp guide as the one who ordered captured militants to be kept in the pits, was found guilty by the European Court of Human Rights, with regard to unlawful detention, violating the right to life, and the forced disappearance of a Chechen militant suspect, Khadzhi-Murat Yandiyev, he ordered to be executed.[23] [edit] PoisoningWhile traveling to Beslan to help in negotiations with the hostage takers, Politkovskaya fell violently ill and lost consciousness after drinking tea. She had been reportedly poisoned, with some accusing the former Soviet secret police poison facility.[24][25] [edit] Threats from OMON officerIn 2001, Politkovskaya fled to Vienna, following e-mail threats claiming that the OMON police officer whom she had accused of committing atrocities against civilians was looking to take revenge. The officer, 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 torturing and disappearing a Chechen civilian detainee, the case exposed by Anna Politkovskaya in the article "Disappearing People".[26][27][28] [edit] Conflict with Ramzan KadyrovIn 2004, Politkovskaya had a conversation with Chechnya's Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya. One of his assistants said to her: "One had to shoot you in Moscow, right on the street, as used to kill people in your Moscow". Ramzan repeated:"You are the enemy. Shoot...". Novaya Gazeta editor Dmitry Muratov said that on the day of her murder, Politkovskaya had planned to file a lengthy story on torture practices believed to be used by Chechen security detachments known as Kadyrovites. She described Kadyrov as the "Chechen Stalin of our days" in the last interview of her life.[29][30] [edit] Assassination Wikinews has related news:
Politkovskaya was found shot dead on Saturday, 7 October 2006 in the elevator of her apartment block in central Moscow. She had been shot twice in the head and a third time in the shoulder at point blank range.[31] The funeral was held on Tuesday, 10 October, at 2:30 p.m., at the Troyekurovsky Cemetery. Before Politkovskaya was laid to rest, more than 1,000 people filed past her coffin to pay their last respects. Dozens of Politkovskaya's colleagues, public figures and admirers of her work gathered at a cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow for the funeral. No high-ranking Russian officials could be seen at the ceremony.[32] There was widespread international reaction, and Russian state authorities were accused by some of her colleagues and friends of negligence in doing nothing to prevent her murder or even of actual involvement in her assassination. [edit] DocumentaryIn 2008, Swiss director Eric Bergkraut made a documentary, Letter to Anna, about Politkovskaya's life and death. It includes interviews with her son Ilya, her daughter Vera, and her ex-husband, Alexander Politkovsky.[33][34][35] [edit] Awards
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