Justice for Politkovskaya demanded
Anna Politkovskaya - Image courtesy of Novaya Gazeta and Human Rights in Russia (www.hro.org)
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Saturday, 06, Oct 2007 10:18
An open letter signed by more than 60 celebrities and dignitaries has demanded that those responsible for the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya are brought to justice.
The letter, whose signatories include Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the widows of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl and Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, is published in the Times ahead of tomorrow's one-year anniversary of Ms Politkovskaya's killing.
"We call on the Russian government to bring to justice, in full conformity with international standards, both those who killed Anna Politkovskaya and those who have ordered her murder," the letter states.
"We also call on the world's leaders to pledge to do everything in their power to protect the journalists and human rights defenders who work in areas of war and conflict, and who speak out on behalf of the victims, as Anna did.
"We owe it to the memory of Anna to protect the very few who still speak out, on behalf of those to whom nobody wants to listen," the letter, also signed by former Czech president Vaclav Havel, playwright Harold Pinter and actresses Vanessa Redgrave and Susan Sarandon, concludes.
The only person charged so far in connection with Ms Politkovskaya's murder is former Chechen governor Shamil Burayev
Shamil Burayev is accused of being complicit in the suspected contract killing of the 48-year-old, a prominent critic of president Vladimir Putin.
Mr Burayev, who unsuccessfully ran for the Moscow-backed Chechen presidency four years ago, was among ten people arrested in connection with Ms Politkovskaya's murder in August, although many have since been released.
Russian prosecutors have charged the former governor of Achkhoi-Martan with supplying contract killers with Ms Politkovskaya's Moscow address.
She was killed on October 7th last year in her apartment building in the Russian capital in a suspected contract killing.
Ms Politkovskaya's death prompted an outpouring of grief and widespread condemnation among the international community.
Despite being a fierce critic of Mr Putin's regime through her frontline investigative reporting from Chechnya, upon her death the president vowed that the "horribly cruel crime" would not go unpunished.
But he added that her influence on Russian politics had been "minimal… very minor".
More than 1,000 people attended the Novaya Gazeta correspondent's funeral in Moscow last year.