WUNRN
RUSSIA - 5 SENTENCED FOR MURDER OF
JOURNALIST ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
VIENNA, 10
June 2014 – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović
today welcomed the sentences handed down to five individuals for the murder of
journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, but called for the investigation to
continue to bring the masterminds to justice. “The Politkovskaya case is still
not closed until those who ordered this horrific murder are identified and
convicted. Anna’s family, friends and colleagues around the world deserve
justice”, Mijatović said. On June 9 the Moscow City Court found five
individuals, including three defendants acquitted in the previous trial, guilty
of planning, participating, and carrying out the murder of Politkovskaya. They
received lengthy prison sentences. The court ruling was based on the jury trial
verdict which on 22 May found all five suspects guilty. The court also
confirmed that Politkovskaya was killed for her critical reporting. However,
the investigation was unable to name the masterminds of the crime.
Journalist
Anna Politkovskaya was shot and killed in Moscow on 7 October 2006, in her
residential building. Politkovskaya was known for her critical views and
reports, including on the Chechnya War.
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----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
ListServe
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 10:01 AM
Subject: Russia - Anna Politkovskaya Slain Rights Journalist - Movie
WUNRN
Website Link Includes Film Segment.
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA,
SLAIN RUSSIAN RIGHTS JOURNALIST - NEW MOVIE
by
Alexandra Marie Daniels
Someone tried to silence Anna Politkovskaya. An investigative journalist with a
bleeding heart, she was assassinated on October 7, 2006 at age 48 in her
apartment building in
As expressed in the
opening scenes of the new film A
Bitter Taste of Freedom, Anna was
Though other films were made about Anna Politkovskaya after her
death, A Bitter Taste of
Freedom is unique. It is a ‘visual portrait,’ a window into Anna’s
life, created by one of her most intimate friends, Russian filmmaker Marina
Goldovskaya.
As part of the
International Documentary Association's 15th Annual DocuWeeks™ Theatrical
Documentary Showcase I had the opportunity to sit down with Marina
Goldovskaya and discuss their friendship and her new film.
Anna Politkovskaya and
her husband Sasha were former students of Goldovskaya at
As a documentary
filmmaker Goldovskaya's goal is to preserve history. As a woman experiencing a
transformative period in Russian history she did not hesitate to film every
possible moment she could.
“With Gorbachev,”
Goldovskaya explains, “It was euphoric…Freedom was something we didn’t know,
and we still know very little about…We thought, this is the beginning of a
completely new era…My goal was to make a film to show the changes, where they
are going, and I started shooting.”
But Goldovskaya feels
that “in order to make a film about a political issue, it has to be very
well-grounded in the reality, in life.”
At age 48 Anna
Politkovskaya was assassinated in
During the making of A
Taste of Freedom, Sasha was often away on assignments and
Goldovskaya spent many hours filming conversations with Anna at the Politkovsky
home while she raised her two children. A
Bitter Taste of Freedom spans their 20-year friendship.
Taking time with her
words as she takes time with her coffee, Ms. Goldovskaya explains “there are
people with very thick skin…There are people with thin skin and there are
people without skin…I have a thin skin. I really take things very close to
heart…Anna was a person with no skin at all.” Deeply affected by what she saw,
Anna’s emotions were raw and it was for this reason that Anna did her work and
genuinely did it well.
Despite her fear Anna
traveled regularly back of forth between
She explains how Anna
disguised herself as a Chechen woman by wearing long skirts; how despite poor
vision, Anna would remove her glasses because Chechen women did not wear
glasses; and how she put a scarf on her head to hide.
“She would go there and
talk to people in villages, in private homes, and of course she never knew what
was going to happen. A couple of times she was arrested by the Federal Russian
Guard. She continued to do it, risking her life, it was a part of her.”
Anna became a human
rights activist defending the innocent civilians whose lives were destroyed. “Shocked
and traumatized,” she felt she had no choice but to report on the atrocities of
war. The work was dangerous but Anna never looked back.
The chief editor of Novaya Gazeta, the
newspaper where Anna worked, said many times “stop going, I am afraid for you;”
but Anna maintained an attitude of “if not me, then who?”
Goldovskaya never
accompanied Anna on her trips to
Investigative journalist for
As a journalist Anna was not able to ignore her responsibility to
society. Russian authorities did not like her reporting from
Dmitry Bykov, a writer
interviewed in the film, believed that “her point of view was deeply affected
by what she saw,” and commented that “by virtue of her passionate female
concern for
Striking me as absurd, I
asked Goldovskaya about Bykov’s comment. She explains “it is a part of Russian
patriarchal society, the remnants…an inescapable part of Russian mentality.”
She tells me “Anna Politkovskaya made many of her colleagues uncomfortable. Her
feminine perspective even disgusted some.”
]
Despite the conflicting
feelings towards her, Anna followed her raw emotions. She became a voice for
the Chechen people - establishing relationships and becoming someone they could
trust. In 2002, Politkovskaya was asked to be a negotiator during the Nordost
theater siege by armed Chechen rebels. Very sadly, Anna was not able to help.
Thirty-nine rebels along with at least 129 hostages were killed when Russian
forces pumped toxic gas into the theater to end the raid.
Former Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev describes Anna in the film as “a remarkable
journalist…because she was a remarkable person.” He explains that she was
strong and ethical and went on to say that “life is always hard for such people…In
her heart and in her mind she wanted to see the country improved, for the
people to feel…confident. And free.”
Anna’s conscience
propelled Goldovskaya to make A
Bitter Taste of Freedom; and through it, she continues to live.
After seeing the documentary and speaking with Marina Goldovskaya I believe we
should all ask, “if not me, then who?”
About the Author:
Alexandra Marie
Daniels
is a writer, dancer, and filmmaker. She has made three films with the director
Bernard Rose, including The
Kreutzer Sonata (2008) and Mr.
Nice (2010) and has worked with the director Martyn Atkins as a
script supervisor on concerts such as Eric
Clapton and Steve Winwood: Live from Madison Square Garden and The Crossroads Guitar Festival 2010.
Alexandra is The WIP's Arts, Culture, and Media Editor.
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----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:22 AM
Subject: Anna Politkovskaya - Slain Russian Journalist Rights
Defender - Movie: "Letter to Anna"
WUNRN
Letter
to Anna: Movie
The Story of
Slain Russian Journalist Anna Politkovskaya's Death
Anna
Politkovskaya
Анна
Степановна
Политковская
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Letter
to Anna: Movie - Summary
Anna
Politkovskaya was a Russian reporter who regularly wrote for Novaya Gazyeta,
one of the country's few independent journals. In a nation where political
corruption is widespread and exposing the misdeeds of the nation's leaders often
has dangerous consequences, Politkovskaya was a fearless voice whose stories
demanded responsibility from Vladimir Putin and his colleagues while decrying
Russia's actions in Chechnya, which she labeled as genocide. While
Politkovskaya writings earned her respect and made her one of the nation's best
known journalists, they also angered many powerful people; she nearly died
after she was poisoned in 2004 while covering the Beslan school hostage case,
and in October 2006 she was shot and killed by an unknown gunman while riding
an elevator in her apartment building; many of her friends and family believe
she was assassinated by government agents. Filmmaker Eric Bergkraut struck up a
friendship with Politkovskaya while making his documentary Coca: The Dove From
Chechnya, and Ein Artikel zu viel: Der Mord an Anna Politkowskaja (aka Letter
To Anna: The Story Of Journalist Politkovskaya's Death features archival
interviews with the late reporter, as well as contributions from colleagues and
loved ones who discuss her work and offer their views on her suspicious
passing. Letter To Anna received its North American premiere at the 2008
Toronto Hot Docs Film Festival. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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WUNRN
TRIBUTE TO SLAIN RUSSIAN WOMAN
JOURNALIST
ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA
Politkovskaya:
A Life for Justice
By Swanee
Hunt
October 10, 2006
Everyone needs a hero. Anna Politkovskaya was mine. And others’. In addition to the 2005 Civil Courage Prize, she received the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation in 2002, as well as prizes from the Overseas Press Club and Amnesty International. In 2004, she was a joint winner of the Olof Palme Prize for her human rights work.
I met Anna in November, 2000, at Women Waging Peace, a network of about 450 leaders within the Initiative for Inclusive Security, which advocates for the full inclusion of women in peace processes around the world. That initiative was incubated at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. We try to protect and support women peace experts in part by bringing them to the attention of policy makers at the State Department, World Bank, White House, and other halls of power.
This past Saturday Anna was executed: shot point blank in the head with a revolver outside her apartment. The gun was placed by her side, indicating a contract-killing. She was 48.
Born in 1958, Anna graduated from
She told me once that because she was female, she was considered less
threatening and could get behind the lines, where she reported on abuses the
army was perpetrating against Muslim communities under cover of fighting
terrorism. She described how, to avoid a military checkpoint, she’d made her
way down to a river, then trekked through deep snow all night. Another
time, she posed as a farm wife sitting on a pile of hay in a wagon; she smiled
that without her wire-rims she couldn’t see a thing. Another time she was
apprehended by Russian forces but freed as night fell by a sympathetic major.
In February 2000, the FSB (former KGB) confined her in a pit in
Despite those dangers, like many of the women we have sponsored, Anna Politkovskaya kept working to expose the injustices around her. Fearless, but not naïve, she knew her life was on the line as she described the moral decay of 100,000 security forces, whose abuses only spawn more terrorism. Still, she continued to document zachistka ("mop-up"), where young men, or any others considered suspicious, are rounded up from their homes, sometimes tortured, and often executed.
Because of her standing with the Chechens, Politkovskaya acted as a mediator
during the Dubrovka Theater siege in
I last saw Anna in December. She and a small group were discussing the role of women in the security sector, as protectors of human rights, journalists, politicians, and leaders of civil society. They called for women’s solidarity internationally to ensure peace and stability. Anna spoke about freedom of speech and how crucial it is for NGOs to challenge the government. Her words then bear the weight of her sacrifice now.
That day I took two pictures of Anna: the first, somber; the second, her head back, laughing. I think of those two images of her as we mourn her murder and celebrate her life. She understood that with freedom comes responsibility to work for those denied such freedom. As we grieve her death, forty years too soon, we must redouble our efforts and carry forward her legacy.
Swanee Hunt, former