One year ago almost to the day, the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was found slain in her apartment building in Moscow, shot through the head. For years, Politkovskaya’s hard-hitting investigative reporting had told stories of the brutality and corruption of Russia’s ‘dirty war’ in Chechnya that most of the international media had ceased to write about. Through arrests, death threats, and a near-poisoning—and in a media increasingly controlled by the state and its oligarchs—the unflinching Politkovskaya never slowed down.
Even at the time of her death, the 48-year-old Politkovskaya had been reporting on the torture of Chechen civilians by pro-Moscow security forces. Four days after her murder on October 7 of last year, the independent Novaya Gazeta (Russia’s leading opposition newspaper) published her unfinished article, alongside pictures of the torture victims.
Despite her international acclaim, there was no attempt made to disguise Politkovskaya’s murder. She was shot multiple times in broad daylight, her body lying in the elevator of her apartment, next to the assassin’s pistol.
The Novaya Gazeta now knows the identity of Politkovskaya’s assassin, yet the man has been neither found nor arrested. Furthermore, Russian prosecutors have not identified the person who ordered this contract killing.
Politkovskaya was a shining example of courage in journalism, and her unsolved case is singularly devastating. The murder of journalists, however, is a story by no means unique to Russia. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which keeps “detailed data on journalists killed on duty as part of its mission of defending press freedom,” 636 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992. One-hundred fifteen journalists have been killed in Iraq since March 2003, and as of December 1, 2006, 134 journalists worldwide were imprisoned (China, Cuba, Eritrea and Ethiopia being the top jailors).
A weekly glance through international news reports shows how commonplace such abuse is. This past week, a 17-year-old admitted to killing a well-known Turkish-Armenian journalist in January. Less than two weeks ago, a Japanese journalist named Kenji Nagai was shot to death in the crackdown by Myanmar’s junta. Nagai, a photojournalist, continued to take photographs from the ground, after being shot by a Burmese soldier. In mid-August, two Somali journalists were killed in Mogadishu, one fatally wounded as he drove back from the funeral of his colleague at HornAfrik, who had been shot outside his office. Chauncey Bailey, a journalist who had recently been named editor of The Oakland Post (considered a prominent African-American publication), was shot to death on August 2 on a downtown Oakland street.
Each year, numbers of journalists across the globe are arrested, beaten, harassed, raped, kidnapped, exiled and murdered. But it’s not only through violence that freedom of the press is restrained—even in this country.
When The New York Times published an article detailing U.S. investigations into terror-financing activity last year, President Bush called it “disgraceful,” and Donald Rumsfeld claimed the piece would “cause the loss of American lives.” Right-wing pundits discussed whether Bill Keller, the Executive Editor of the Times, should be jailed, killed by firing squad or electrocuted by gas chamber. Two-hundred twenty members of the House, including every single Republican but one (Connecticut’s own Christopher Shays, actually), voted to condemn the paper for violation of the Espionage Act of 1917.
As part of its crusade not to be held accountable for certain actions, the Bush administration has made it exceedingly difficult for reporters to do their job. During the few press conferences that Bush actually holds, he often finds ways to dodge the most hard-hitting questions. In skewing public broadcasting, in paying off pundits and in deceptively delivering fake news on matters like Iraq (this does not mean Jon Stewart), the administration seems contemptuous of the Freedom of Information Act and what it stands for. Bush and co. are all about gaining maximum access to information for themselves (see: the Patriot Act) and denying it to the public.
U.N. Goodwill Ambassador and arm-candy-de-Brad Angelina Jolie was right in “A Mighty Heart,” her valiant attempt to raise awareness about the kidnap and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The assault on journalism does not just concern journalists. We can critique The New York Times for its liberal (or conservative) slant all we want and mock The New York Post or The Wall Street Journal (especially considering the Murdoch-approaching reign), but the moment we stop fighting for freedom of the press, we lose an important pillar of democratic society.
For fighting against Russia’s ‘dirty war,’Anna Politkovskaya met her end in the ‘dirty war’ against journalism. She was punished in her quest for openness and accountability; Politkovskaya was killed for doing her job. Her murder should be remembered, therefore, as nothing more and nothing less than a testament to the power of the written word.
The Committee to Protect Journalists is urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to conduct an investigation that is “diligent, transparent, and free of political influence.” Politkovskaya’s tale deserves such an investigation, and Russia cannot afford to cast aside the case without doing justice. Freedom of the press, after all, is one casualty that we cannot afford.
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