ASSASSINATIONS? ALAS, IT IS MOST COMMON.
Moscow, Russia


Puddles of melted snow and militia with German Shepherds. People with traditional funeral flower, red carnations that I seem to buy too often these days, are lining up to the coffin of Stanislav Markelov, the attorney shot and killed, along with a young journalist Anastasia Babyrova, in broad daylight in central Moscow on Monday. I take my place in line, among well-known human rights activists as well as youths with nose rings and green hair. One of the gravediggers, as they pass through the crowd, notes in a somewhat inappropriately upbeat tone that it started to rain.

Seeing a few TV crews I think to myself that a funeral of someone assassinated this way in America or UK would have had live CNN coverage. And, indeed, I notice that CNN crew is present here, unlike the Russian government channels. Markelov was know for taking on tough, controversial cases, that uncovered some ugly facts about corruption among Russian government officials, as well as kidnappings, torture and murders in the southern republic of Chechnya. The case of murder of a Chechen girl by Russian Army colonel was perhaps the best publicised one but not the most potentially dangerous.

It is also no accident that the journalist killed along with the attorney worked in Novaya Gazeta. In the atmosphere of censorship and self-censorship in the Russian media Novaya Gazeta is unique. It has an incredibly strong investigation unit and is a newspaper whose goal it is to talk about the things that are wrong with Russia, as that is the only way to attempt to cure the society and the system. Novaya Gazeta has had five of its journalists killed over a period of few years, including Anna Politkovskaya, to whose murder in 2006 Vladimir Putin was forced to respond by foreign journalists. In a healthy society and a free country one should be free to criticise the policies of the government, choose without fear to represent in court people who’ve been crushed by the system, expose through writing government’s dirty ugly secrets. Today Russian political regime, which keeps sliding towards being totalitarian, roots and flourishes on war, terrorism and corruption, using instability as one of its playing cards.
In Russia, as soon as you take on certain taboo subjects, as a journalist, a writer or an attorney, good people around you start telling you that they admire your courage and that they are concerned for your safety. I seem to have these conversations practically on a daily basis. Of note is the silent response of Kremlin to the most recent murders. Agenda of its residents, evidently, does not take such minor factors into consideration.

There is one thing I now absolutely believe - even though those in power might not have directly ordered the assassinations, they side with the killer and not their victims.