Looks like the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya is finally opening the eyes of the world to what’s been going on in Russia for quite some time:
Unnatural death occurs with alarming regularity here, despite the carefully cultivated impression that President Vladimir V. Putin has presided over an era of stability, economic progress and resurgent national pride. Some say it occurs because of it.
“This state killed Anna Politkovskaya,” Grigory A. Yavlinsky, a once-prominent democratic leader, declared bluntly as the mourners filed out into a cold, gray afternoon.
Russia is unquestionably a dangerous place for journalists — less so than only Iraq and Algeria, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Thirteen of them have been killed since Mr. Putin came to power in 2000, a little more than two a year on average.
It’s not only journalists who are in danger when they speak out. Vladimir Putin hasn’t been particularly tolerant of any kind of political dissent. Anyone who speaks out, threatens him, or becomes too powerful has a way of mysteriously disappearing, as Putin works to steadily and quietly curtail many of the post-Soviet freedoms that have been built in Russia.
When my sister was studying Russian politics in university, she used to rant about the situation, lamenting the blind eye that the West has been turning to Russia – the gradual erosion of human rights, the trouncing that the political system has been taking, the efforts of Putin to cling to power. Not too many people noticed, though. It appears that Politkovskaya’s murder was the catalyst needed to open our eyes, and we will need to be much warier from here on out.