Politkovskaya’s burial a somber moment observed from Moscow to Europe
- UK again seeks to extradite suspected assassin after attempted poisoning of Russia’s most prominent human rights lawyer
- Prominent Russian human rights lawyer alleges that persons unknown tried to poison her
- Journalist and human rights advocate Anna Politkovskaya murdered in Moscow
- Russian democracy smothered by NGO law, corruption and a muzzled media
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President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, broke a three-day silence on Politkovskaya's death and called her role in Russian political life "insignificant" in an interview with a German newspaper.
Crowds began to gather outside the Troyekurovskoye cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow early in the drizzly day – a testimony to her almost movie-star status among Russian journalists and human rights defenders.
The entrance to Politkovskaya’s apartment building had on Sunday and Monday become a makeshift shrine, as well wishers laid flowers by her photograph, and Russia’s main newspapers ran pictures of her on their front pages. Colleagues at her newspaper, the liberal biweekly Novaya Gazeta, published a special issue promising that "her killers will not sleep soundly."
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| Mourners in St. Petersburg light a candle on a shrine they made for Politkovskaya. |
| Reuters |
Thronging crowds, shown on Russian television, filed by Politkovskya’s open casket - which featured a large portrait of the slain reporter - leaving flowers, photos, notes of farewell and wreaths for the journalist who became the voice of the average Chechen citizen in the bloody war Moscow is ambivalently fighting to reign in the break-away republic.
Politkovskaya was laid in state dressed in black with a white ribbon around her head covering the spot where her assassin aimed his fatal last bullet.
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| Politkovskaya's daughter Vera (left) pays her last respects to her mother. |
| Reuters |
Thousands more mourners turned out in St.Petersburg, Yekatrinburg, Kiev and European capitals to hold memorial services and vigils of their own.
Politkovskaya was a searing critic of the war in Chechnya and a vehement opponent of President Putin's smothering of civil society in Russia. Her reporting and her several books on Chechnya and the Putin administration drew her official harassment and frequent death threats. It is suspected that a story she was to have published yesterday may have been behind the contract-style killing of the reporter.
Speaking at the funeral, Vitaly Yaroshevsky, deputy editor-in-chief of Politkovskaya's newspaper, said: "There are almost no more journalists like her left today.”
"Anna was a fearless person; not reckless, but courageous. She's the third (reporter) to have died from our paper. This is a blow to freedom of the press in Russia," he said as quoted by the BBC.
More vigils and gatherings are planned around Russia for October 15th, nine days after her death - which according to Russian tradition is a sacred day to honour the deceased. Her colleagues are also nominating her for the UNESCO prize for freedom of speech and they also plan to form a journalistic prize in her name, News.ru website reported.
Her paper, meanwhile, promised to print the story she had been working on when she died - a story about torture and brutality inflicted on Chechen citizens by the minions of Razman Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen premier - in a special edition that will run Thursday.
Self-censorhip in the cards?
Despite the heroic image of Politkovskaya that has been rightfully raised in Russia and internationally since her murder, the question of whether journalistic self-censorship – a feature that has grown more and more common during the Putin regime – will now take a new, more powerful hold among Russia’s fourth estate.
"She was unique - no one else undertook investigations at that level and so uncompromisingly," Alexei Venediktov, editor-in-chief of the independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, told Agence France Press.
"I think many journalists will be scared. Many journalists will understand that investigative reporting in the Caucasus can be fatal," Venediktov said.
Messages of grief and outrage over her murder continued to flow in from journalists and human rights activists in Russia, Europe and the United States.
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| President Putin finally weighed in after a three-day silence, calling Politkovskaya "insignificant" to the political life of Russia. |
| AFP |
Putin finally comments on murder, calling Politkovskaya's role 'insignificant'
Putin had offered no comment on the high-profile murder until today when he gave an interview to Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which was reprinted on the Russian news site Polit.ru. He was in the country for trade talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Putin said “the crime is totally abominable in its cruelty” and “must not remain unsolved.”
But then he turned a more truculent eye on the press in general and minimised Politkovskaya's role in the Russian media.
“She definitely was a critic of the current authorities, which is characteristic of all representatives of the press, but she occupied a radical position,” he said. “I must say that her political influence ... was insignificant inside the country, and she was more noticeable in human rights circles and circles of the mass media in the West."
"I think … that the murder of Politkovskaya did more damage to the current authorites in general and the Chechen authorities in specific than her publications did,” he concluded.
Reporters in Russia, Europe and the United States had been furious that Putin had dodged comment on Politkovskaya’s death until the day of her burial.
“Anna Politkovskaya, is our colleague, and was a courageous and honest person. Her murder happened at a time in Russia when it was practically unacceptable to speak either about Chechnya or human rights,” the Moscow Charter of Journalists said in a statement that appeared in Ezhednevnaya Gazeta today.
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| US Ambassabor to Russia William Burns at Politkovskaya's funeral today. |
| Reuters |
Among the eminent personalities attending the funeral were Yaroskevksy, Venediktov, Leonid Khidirov, Russia’s deputy minister of culture, Yasen Zasursky, dean of Moscow State University’s journalism department and Union of Journalists’ Chairman Vsyevolod Bogdanov. Norway’s Ambassador to Russia, Øyvind Nordsletter, US Ambassador to Russia William Burns and other western members of the Moscow diplomatic corps were also in attendance.
"We are deeply shocked by this murder. Anna embodied the best qualities of a real journalist; there was a lot of respect for her both in Russia and abroad," said Burns, as he stood by Politkovskaya's coffin, in remarks reported by the BBC.
It is telling that no Russian government officials with more clout than the deputy minister of culture were in attendance. But the BBC’s Richard Gaplin in Moscow wrote that there will be intense international pressure to solve this case and others similar to it.
"The pressure is now going to be applied on the Russian government by the international community to put an end to the killing of so many journalists," he said in an article on the BBC website, citing research showing that more than 40 journalists have died since the early 1990s, 13 – including Politkovskaya’s - in apparent contract killings.
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| Demonstrators in Oslo holding a banner reading: "The murder of Anna P.-Russian freedom of the press?" |
| Charles Digges/Bellona |
Oslo says its farewells
In Oslo, some 200 residents turned out in front of the Russian Embassy in cool sunny weather to observe a moment of silence arranged by Norway’s Amnesty International office to honor the slain journalist, whose unflinching reporting made her an international figure and a hero to many of the Scandinavian nation’s most prominent journalists and humans rights advocates.
The demonstration itself was held at bay across the street from the embassy by Olso police, who were in attendance with street patrols, two mounted officers and an operations van. Demonstrators had erected a flower adorned, candle bedecked shrine featuring Politkovskaya’s portrait.
“The death of Anna Politkovskaya leaves a hole, and we cannot let that hole remain as it will become a void,” said Ann-Magritt Austenå, chair of Oslo’s Journalists’ Union.
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| PEN Norway's head Kjell Olaf Jensen addressing Politkovskaya supporters. Behind him is the Russian Embassy. |
| Charles Digges/Bellona |
“So we must support the brave journalists who remain, those journalists who are critical of the government,” she told the crowd, who held flowers and banners in Russian an Norwegian, reading “The murder of Anna Politkovskaya – the face of the Russian free press?”
Bjørn Engesland of the Norwegian Human Rights House, said that Politkovskaya “had moved many people. She was an extraordinary person. Her role as a journalist was extremely important and she will be missed.”
But Engesland noted that she had become, to all levels of Russian government “public enemy number one,” but added that the world should not be too hasty in tying Politkovskaya’s assassination to the dark cardinals of the Kremlin.
“The important thing at the moment is that we don’t know who did it and we don’t have a motive,” he said. “The Russian government is innocent until proven guilty.”
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| Police questioned Eide, Austenå and Engesland, as they approach the Russian Embassy to deliver an appeal to investigate the murder thoroughly. They were eventually let thorugh. |
| Charles Digges/Bellona |
After making their official remarks and observing a minute of silence for Politkovskaya, Engensland, Austenå and Norway’s Amnesty International head, Petter Eide, set out across the street to deliver a note to the Russian Embassy imploring the Russian government to carry out a fair and unbiased investigation to bring Politkovskaya’s killer to justice.
They were briefly hindered by police, but were let in through the Embassy’s iron gates where they hand-delivered the message to a diplomatic assistant.
‘We cannot keep silent – she spoke for all of us’
Others gathered in the crowd represented Oslo journalistic and literary establishment, the human rights sector, and members of the Russian and Chechen diaspora. One elderly Chechen woman, who could barely speak as she choked back tears, told Bellona Web she had been “more than a relative” of Politkovskaya.
Asking that her name not be used, she related that her son, who had been captured and brutalized by Russian forces, became an ongoing subject of Politkovskaya’s investigations.
Attending the demonstration with her daughter, she said that her son had eventually been killed, despite Politkovskaya’s efforts to bring his story to light and influence authorities. “She was our only hope,” the woman said of Politkovskaya. “She was a member of the family.”
Elisabeth Eide, a member of the International Board of Fiction Writers and a journalism professor, said she had turned out today “because I have always admired Politkovskaya’s work.”
She said that Norway’s Association of Professional Journalists has “much to learn from her.”
Maddelina Parolin, an Italian national working with the Norwegian branch of the Helsinki Committee said she was there today because “We cannot keep silent…(Politkovskaya) spoke for every one of us.”
Parolin’s area of specialisation at the Helsinki Committee is Chechnya, and Politkovskaya’s books, she said, were her main texts and chief source of inspiration.
“I feel responsible to continue work on Chechnya,” she said.
Anders Heger, an Oslo publisher, said as he drew on his pipe that he had met Politkovskaya several times in person and spoken with her extensively.
“Mainly, this is a strike against freedom of expression in Russia,” he said. “We have to send an international message – but I don’t think they will listen. "
