The AP quotes Oleg Orlov, head of the Memorial rights group where Natalya Estermirova worked, as saying that witnesses saw four men force her into a car in the Chechen capital of Grozny on Wednesday. She was later found lying on a road with two bullet wounds in her head, Russian police and activists say, the AP reports.

RIA Novosti, a Russian news service, reports that Estemirova had been investigating kidnappings and disappearances in Chechnya for Memorial. She had earlier worked with journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot to death in Moscow in 2006 and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was killed in the Russian capital earlier this year, the news agency reports.

Anastasiya Baburova (only 25) was shot on January 19 – minutes after a press conference at the Independent Press Center. She was walking towards the Metro station with a laywer, Stanislav Markelov.

Baburova apparently tried to stop the killer, who had walked past her after shooting Markelov; the man then shot her in the head, Kommersant reported, citing unnamed witnesses of the scene.

Markelov died immediately; Baburova died several hours later in a Moscow hospital. “It appears that Markelov was the main target,” Sergei Sokolov, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, told CPJ. He added that the paper is waiting for the official results of the investigation to determine whether Baburova was also targeted.

Two hours before his assassination, Markelov had given a press conference criticizing the early release on Thursday of former Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov, a tank commander convicted and imprisoned in 2003 on charges of murdering a young Chechen girl named Elza Kungayeva in 2000, Sokolov told CPJ. Markelov represented the Kungayeva family and was planning to appeal Budanov’s early release.

“We have so far not charged the killer but we know who he is,” Garibyan told Novaya Gazeta in an interview. Gabriyan did not say if the person was in custody, or why he had not yet been charged.

His comments are likely to strengthen suspicions among Politkovskaya’s family and colleagues that the case is not as close to being solved as Chaika had suggested.

They have accused the Prosecutor-General of rushing to trumpet a breakthrough to score political points. Since Chaika announced arrests in the case in August, two suspects have released for lack of evidence.

I’ll file that in the folder “Russian SNAFU”.

It looks like Russain prosectors have charged ten people with her murder.

Russian prosecutors have arrested 10 people in connection with the murder of investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya and will soon charge them, the country’s chief prosecutor said on Monday.

Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika said the suspects were part of an organized crime group that might also be linked to the 2004 murder in Moscow of U.S. reporter Paul Klebnikov and central bank deputy chief Andrei Kozlov.

It looks like there’s just one crime group in the whole of Russia and any (all) murders in the 2004-2007 period will be “connected” to it. Needless to say, even Russian media are sceptic about this.

Tags: Anna Politkovskaya, death, gonzo, journalism, Putin, Russia

Anna Politkovskaya, death, gonzo, journalism, Putin, Russia

Thirty-one people were arrested during the peaceful demonstration by the police. At the same time, the police stood aside while right-wing and Orthodox activists took the chance the exercise their “right” to violent protest by hitting many of the activists.

Here’s the news blurp, you can view the video here.

Police detained gay rights activists, among them European lawmakers, as they tried to present a letter to Moscow’s mayor yesterday in a demonstration that also attracted a hostile crowd of people who punched and threw eggs at the activists.

Police quickly grabbed about a dozen activists and forced them into a bus, including Russian gay rights movement leader Nikolai Alexeyev.

Marco Cappato, a European Parliament deputy from Italy, was kicked by one opponent as he spoke to journalists. Cappato began shouting “Where are the police? Why don’t you protect us?” and officers hauled him away as he struggled.

So let’s recap Putin’s priorities when it comes to free speech and human rights:

1) Journalists
2) Ex-spies
3) Gays

There was a recent study on how the price of petrol influences certain countries to become more/less authoritarian. Following this logic, if the price of petrol hits $100, Russia will probably become more authoritarian than the Soviet Union during the Cold War (if at all possible).

Tags: Anna Politkovskaya, death, free speech, journalism, Putin, Russia, spy

Anna Politkovskaya, death, free speech, journalism, Putin, Russia, spy

He’s not alone. The Committee to Protect Journalists annual worldwide census found 134 journalists imprisoned on December 1, an increase of nine from the 2005 tally.

As you can see the main offenders are China, Cuba, Eritrea, and Ethiopia. Overall, there are 24 nations that imprison journalists.

Moreover, some of the worst offenders (e.g. Eritrea) have denied imprisoned journalists even the most basic elements of due process. For some, it’s not even clear if they’re alive or dead.

Another bothering statistic: a full third of all imprisoned journalists are Internet bloggers (or citizen journalists).

I’m a bit surprised that these statistics don’t include the number of journalists that have been brutally murdered in Russia or Iraq.

Tags: BBC, citizen journalism, correspondent, death, free speech, Russia

BBC, citizen journalism, correspondent, death, free speech, Russia

There’s an obvious beneficiary from this death – Russia’s current regime and/or the KGB (now FSB). The Russian parliament voted in June to allow state officials to carry out overseas assassinations.

It has been only a month since Anna Politkovskaya’s brutal death. In 2004, Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader survived miraculously a dioxin poisoning.

Both Litvinenko and Politkovskaya published articles and books criticising the Kremlin and Putin in particular. Litvienko went so far as to claim that the Beslan attack was probably carried out with KGB’s blessing.

It’s obvious now what kind of death these sort of comments get you. While Politkovskaya was gunned down execution style in Moscow, Litvinenko agonized for three long weeks as a result from radioactive poisoning.

A lesson on what citizen journalism gets you if you dare criticize Russia.

Tags: Anna Politkovskaya, death, free speech, journalism, Putin, Russia, spy

Anna Politkovskaya, death, free speech, journalism, Putin, Russia, spy

I came back from Moscow a week ago. Frankly, I didn’t see much change since the totalitarian times. I was especially struck when I visited their Museum of Modern History. It definitely felt like history was repeating itself – a revolution followed by an authoritarian regime.

Back to journalism though, here’s the cold statistics on Russia’s track record:

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says Russia is the third-deadliest country in the world for journalists in the past 15 years, behind only Iraq and Algeria. Forty-two journalists have died in Russia since 1992, many slain in contract-style killings which have remained unsolved.

I can’t imagine any kind of citizen journalism happening in a country where the professionals are getting gunned down. I’ll wrap it up with another quote – this one from the great journalist Hunter S. Thompson (a.k.a. Doctor Gonzo):

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

RIP, Anna.

Tags: Anna Politkovskaya, death, gonzo, journalism, Putin, Russia

Anna Politkovskaya, death, gonzo, journalism, Putin, Russia