Sunday, October 08, 2006
Existential angst or Ethics - either one can seal one's fate. Case in point...
Carry on as usual, I guess...
This great journalist sure did - until the very end
Some truths are better not dispensed, they say...
("They" being usually those who have things to hide...
Of course...)
The Epitome of Honest Journalism has been silenced once and for all - authorities will breathe easier for a while, until the next Anna gets on their case that is...
(One thing's for sure, judging by their actions, they don't mind the bad reputation they might have all over the globe - AT ALL...)
What pushed Anna Politkovskaya to be the way she was - almost to the point of recklessness on her part? Was it the ethical code of her profession? Was it the drive to be the best? Was it existential angst, the despair of seeing no true reason to be there -in a corrupt system especially- countered with the need to serve a true purpose, even though in striving to do so, each new day might be the last...?
Only Anna herself could answer that - and she will never do so now...
More than any other Russian reporter, Anna Politkovskaya had chronicled killings, tortures and beatings of civilians by Russian servicemen -- reports that put her on a collision course with the authorities.
The first attempt on her life was more subtle - poisoning.
Politkovskaya fell seriously ill with symptoms of food poisoning after drinking tea on a flight from Moscow to southern Russia during the school hostage crisis in Beslan in 2004, where many thought she was heading to mediated the crisis. Her colleagues had suggested the incident was an attempt on her life.
She was one of the few people to have entered the Moscow theater where Chechen militants took hundreds of hostages in October 2002 and try to negotiate with the rebels.
Her body was found in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building, a duty officer at a police station in central Moscow told The Associated Press. Dmitry Muratov, editor of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, where Politkovskaya worked, told Ekho Moskvy radio that she was killed in the late afternoon.
The Interfax news agency, citing police officials, reported that Politkovskaya had been shot and that a pistol and four bullets were found in the elevator.
Politkovskaya's death was the highest profile killing of a journalist in Russia since the July 2004 slaying of Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine.
© 2006 VNU eMedia Inc
Her untimely and violent demise has been reported all over the news worldwide - Russia's rep is right back at what it used to be, I'd say - back in the U.S.S.R (days). Billy Joel must be the only one happy about this - his song is no longer invalidated by the years, socio-political context and "times achangin"...
Nothing ever really changes...
Even if they silence all the Anna Politkovskayas of the world, the truth will always rise to the surface - sooner or later, it will.
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Anna's bio...
Anna Politkovskaya, Russia
Novaya Gazeta
Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for the independent, Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has covered both sides of the war in Chechnya, earning harassment from both the Russian government and Chechen rebels. She is known for her investigative reporting documenting atrocities against the civilian population of Chechnya by the Russian military.
In February 2001, while investigating rapes, beatings and murders committed by the Russian military in the village of Khatuni, Politkovskaya was arrested and held for three days by the Russian military, allegedly because her press credentials were not in order. During that time, she reported that Russian soldiers threatened to shoot her, rape her and harm her children.
While in Moscow in September 2001, she received several death threats because of her reporting. Initially, she was given security guards for her safety and was instructed by her newspaper not to leave her home. When senior staff decided that these precautions were not enough, her publisher helped her flee to Vienna. She returned to Moscow in December 2001 and continues reporting about Chechnya for Novaya Gazeta.
Politkovskaya graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in journalism in 1980. She worked for several trade newspapers before moving to the weekly newspaper Obshchaya Gazeta, where she worked from 1994-1999. She has worked for Novaya Gazeta since 1999. She is the author of A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya [Harvill Press, London, 2001].
Anna Politkovskaya, Russia
Novaya Gazeta
Anna Politkovskaya, a reporter for the independent, Moscow-based newspaper Novaya Gazeta, has covered both sides of the war in Chechnya, earning harassment from both the Russian government and Chechen rebels. She is known for her investigative reporting documenting atrocities against the civilian population of Chechnya by the Russian military.
In February 2001, while investigating rapes, beatings and murders committed by the Russian military in the village of Khatuni, Politkovskaya was arrested and held for three days by the Russian military, allegedly because her press credentials were not in order. During that time, she reported that Russian soldiers threatened to shoot her, rape her and harm her children.
While in Moscow in September 2001, she received several death threats because of her reporting. Initially, she was given security guards for her safety and was instructed by her newspaper not to leave her home. When senior staff decided that these precautions were not enough, her publisher helped her flee to Vienna. She returned to Moscow in December 2001 and continues reporting about Chechnya for Novaya Gazeta.
Politkovskaya graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in journalism in 1980. She worked for several trade newspapers before moving to the weekly newspaper Obshchaya Gazeta, where she worked from 1994-1999. She has worked for Novaya Gazeta since 1999. She is the author of A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya [Harvill Press, London, 2001].
Anna Politikovskaya had won an IWMF Courage in Journalism Award in 2002 for her her unrelenting reporting on Russian society, particularly the war in Chechnya, was shot dead in the elevator of her apartment Oct. 7.
"The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities," Vitaly Yaroshevsky, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, Politkovskaya's newspaper, told Reuters.
www.iwmf.org
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"The first thing that comes to mind is that Anna was killed for her professional activities," Vitaly Yaroshevsky, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, Politkovskaya's newspaper, told Reuters.
www.iwmf.org
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