H.E. Dmitry Medvedev
President
The Kremlin
Moscow
Russian Federation
Fax: (011.7.495) 206-6277/ 5173
Your Excellency:
It is gratifying that, more than eighteen months after the brutal killing of the intrepid journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, three men have finally been formally charged with involvement in her murder. However, we are dismayed that the man accused of the actual killing remains at large. It is even more disturbing that those who ordered the murder remain in the shadows, and that your prosecutors have presented no coherent narrative of the crime or its motives.
We are told by the prosecutor-general’s office that Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, a former police officer with the Moscow Directorate for Combating Organized Crime, and two Chechen brothers, Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov, are accused of having some unspecified role in Politkovskaya’s killing, and that a third Chechen, Rustam Makhmudov, has been charged in absentia with actually killing Politkovskaya. A separate investigation is said to be focused on the mastermind, whoever the person may be. In addition, a former KGB official, Pavel Ryaguzov, has been charged with abuse of office and extortion. This fact is always mentioned in connection with the Politkovskaya case, but recent accounts have specified that Ryaguzov’s charges relate to other crimes.
Your Excellency, ten suspects have been arrested in connection with this atrocity over the months, with only the wispiest account of details linking them to the crime, and all but four have been released. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that your police have rounded up the usual Chechen suspects in an effort to divert attention from the real killers. If you have any interest in dispelling the cloud of mystery surrounding this case, it is imperative to track down the killer and the person who ordered the murder and to disclose all the facts in a public and thoroughly transparent trial.
Since your predecessor, President Vladimir Putin, took office in 2000, at least twenty journalists have been killed in Russia, and none of these cases has been satisfactorily resolved. Until this impunity is ended, your country will remain under a cloud.
It is not re-assuring that fresh abuses of press freedom keep occurring in Russia. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), authorities in the Republic of Ingushetia have repeatedly tried to shut down the regional news Web site, Ingushetiya, one of the few remaining independent news outlets covering the volatile North Caucasus. On June 6, Kuntsevo district court in Moscow ordered the closure of the Web site, alleging that it contained extremist content in a series of articles. Ingushetiya’s owner, Magomed Yevloyev, told CPJ that he thinks authorities want to close down his site because of its critical coverage of current events in Ingushetia. Yevloyev told CPJ that Ingushetia authorities have initiated more than a dozen lawsuits against the Web site in the past year. The Ingushetia regional prosecutor’s office has announced that it is ordering all Ingushetia Internet providers to block access to the Web site, including through proxy servers. Among other issues, Ingushetiya covers disappearances of local residents, corruption, unemployment and anti-government protests. It has called for Ingushetia President Murat Zyazikov to step down.
In another case, the alternative English-language Moscow bi-weekly, The eXile, announced on its Web site last week that it was forced to shut down after nervous investors withdrew support in the wake of a politicized audit of its content. Officers from Rossvyazokhrankultura, the state media regulatory agency, said they were checking the publication for “extremism,” “inciting national hatred,” “pornography” and “pro-drugs propaganda.” They also told Mark Ames, the publication’s founder and editor, that they had received complaints from unnamed Russians who purportedly thought The eXile degraded Russian culture. The eXile routinely criticized both the Kremlin and the West, using strong and irreverent language, according to local and international press reports. The paper was known for its political satire, which often tackled serious issues such as corruption, crime and poverty. After the audit, however, the paper’s investors withdrew their funds, forcing its closure.
The Overseas Press Club of America, an independent organization that has defended press freedom around the world for nearly seventy years, calls on you to begin your presidency by ending all these abuses and affirming your support for freedom of speech and of the media in Russia.
Thank you for your attention. We would appreciate a reply.
Respectfully yours,
Larry Martz
Kevin McDermott
Co-chairmen, Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
Viktor Zubkov
Prime Minister
Government Offices
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Russian Federation
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