A Russian military court will allow public and media access to the trial of three men charged over the murder investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, it ruled in a crucial first hearing. Family members and supporters of the slain Kremlin critic had called for a public trial, though many observers had thought the case would be held behind closed doors. "We will demand that the trial be open," Politkovskaya's son Ilya Politkovsky told the news agency AFP. "My mother was a journalist and I think it's impossible to have... a closed trial." One of the four defendants in the case, Pavel Ryaguzov, is a Federal Security Service agent, meaning special attention will likely go towards keeping the minutia of the case out of public reach. Ryaguzov is suspected of having provided Politkovskaya's home address to her killers and is charged with abuse of office. Three others, including a former police investigator, are also being tried for the killing.
Family members and supporters of the slain Kremlin critic had called for a public trial, though many observers had thought the case would be held behind closed doors.
"We will demand that the trial be open," Politkovskaya's son Ilya Politkovsky told the news agency AFP. "My mother was a journalist and I think it's impossible to have... a closed trial."
One of the four defendants in the case, Pavel Ryaguzov, is a Federal Security Service agent, meaning special attention will likely go towards keeping the minutia of the case out of public reach.
Ryaguzov is suspected of having provided Politkovskaya's home address to her killers and is charged with abuse of office. Three others, including a former police investigator, are also being tried for the killing.
Russia is widely regarded as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists to work in, with 49 killed since 1992
Numbers like that are usually coming from Western NGOs and Western financed experts in Russia and are usually overinflated; I doubt there is a single proven case (as opposed to innuendo, like Politkovskaya's case) of a political murder connected to the federal authorites. However, there are must be a dozen war-related deaths, half a dozen of contract hits connected to the journalistic investigations of the economic crimes and few murders by the Wahabis. Political critics do not threaten any moneyed interests, so they are not worth the trouble of organizing a contract hit.
Kirill Pankratov in his Liars Without Borders piece dissects the ways the number is inflated:
Does anybody really believe that in every other country around the world except the former Soviet Union, journalists never die from car crashes or suspicious suicides, never have untimely heart attacks or other fatal illnesses that can be connected to their work? This is highly unlikely, to say the least. Which points to another obvious explanation for this phenomenon: the criteria applied to Russia and neighboring post-Soviet countries on the one hand, and the rest of the world on the other, are very, very different.
fkriuk had a simular piece at An Audit of the Committee to Protect Journalists Claims:
In summary, CPJ claims that 17 journalists were killed in Russia in since 2000 due to their professional activities. Examination of each case found that out of 17 claims, only 5 were correct (Domnikov, Khasanov, Klebnikov, Makeev, Politkovskaya), 8 were complete falsifications (Skryl, Ivanov, Scott, Shchekochikhin, Sidorov, Kochetkov, Maksimov, Safronov), and 4 were partial falsifications (Yatsina, Yefremov, Markevich, Varisov). If we assign the truthfulness value of 50% to partially falsified claims, the overall truthfulness rate of CPJ, given this sample, is 41%. Clearly, CPJ's definition of "strict journalistic standards" as being only 40% truthful is at variance with what any reasonable person would expect. But it is very much in line with what one would expect from a propaganda outlet.
I don't think I've seen the Liars Without Borders piece before. Thanks. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Political critics do not threaten any moneyed interests, so they are not worth the trouble of organizing a contract hit.
