Sad News

18 Comments

1. 

   Oui on July 15, 2009 at 1:34 pm

   .
   Link to Reuters –

   Russian rights activist kidnapped, found dead

   Well-known to diplomats and human rights activists in Russia, Estemirova was the inaugural recipient in 2007 of the Anna Politkovskaya Award, given by the charity Reach All Women in War (RAWinWAR).

   A fluent Chechen speaker, Estemirova acted as Politkovskaya’s interpreter during her reporting trips to Chechnya, RAWinWAR said on its website. She also reported on the situation freelance for local media.

   A lone assailant gunned down Politkovskaya in her Moscow apartment building in 2006 as she returned home from a shopping trip. Nobody has yet been convicted of her murder.

   Chechnya and the nearby Muslim republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan are home to a simmering low-level Islamist insurgency. Human rights groups have repeatedly accused the authorities of serious abuses during their war on the insurgents, including extra-judicial killings, torture and illegal punishment.

   PS Divine soul? Or define soul.

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

2. 

   RollaMO on July 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm

   Contrast her to the courageous journalists at the Washington Post, who are afraid to use the word “torture’ for fear of being sued (unless it applies to what Mexican authorities have done recently, then it’s in the title on page one).

   • 

     BooMan on July 15, 2009 at 2:32 pm

     well, at least our government doesn’t have journalists kidnapped and shot in the head…

     • 

       RollaMO on July 15, 2009 at 2:34 pm

       Yeah, but Fred Hiatt could get a really nasty letter from a Bush/Cheney attorney.  Scaarrry.

     • 

       dada on July 15, 2009 at 2:48 pm

       are you sure about that?

       maybe shooting yourself twice in the head really is suicide.

       • 

         on July 15, 2009 at 3:39 pm

         A motivated investigative reporter must be really motivated to kill himself twice.

         • 

           dada on July 15, 2009 at 5:36 pm

           that, or a really bad shot, eh. kinda hard to miss at that range.

           and there’s more…2006:  paul sanford, who had the audacity to question BushCo™ about the plame/treason link…jumped from his hotel room on christmas eve.

           2006: philip merrill, president and CEO of Capital-Gazette Communications, Inc., which publishes Washingtonian magazine, the Annapolis Capital, and five other Maryland newspapers… shotgun blast to the head with an anchor tied to his feet. double jeopardy?…or just another bad shot?

           and l didn’t even search for ex-cia agents, bio-chemists, etc. it’s a pretty blatant mo, don’t ya think?

     • 

       on July 15, 2009 at 3:38 pm

       Danny Cannistraro wasn’t shot in the head.

       • 

         on July 15, 2009 at 3:55 pm

         I know he was a Brit but Dr. David Kelly was going to blow the whistle on anthrax biowarfare when he turned up suicided.

     • 

       Oui on July 15, 2009 at 4:59 pm

       .

       Journalists’ perils in Iraq highlighted
       Study says US forces have killed up to 13

       (BostonGlobe) Nov. 18, 2005 – The circumstances of many deaths are unknown. But 13 deaths came at the hands of the US military, according to an analysis by the Committee to Protect Journalists, which filed Freedom of Information Act petitions on the military investigations of the deaths.

       Reporters Without Borders has counted at least 10 journalists killed by US forces. Most of those killed were Iraqis, who are playing an increasing role for Western news outlets because of the security risks.

       Both groups called for more communication between US troops and more cautious treatment of reporters at military checkpoints. They said US soldiers tend to shoot at the slightest provocation, especially at Iraqi journalists with cameras.

       Yasser Salihee ¶ Reporter Murdered :: Story He Died For see link in diary.

       The War on Al Jazeera

       "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

       • 

         DoDo on July 16, 2009 at 4:13 am

         Indeed. But if they’re not Americans…

       • 

         DoDo on July 16, 2009 at 4:19 am

         There is also this:

         After six years, Al-Jazeera cameraman freed from Guantanamo – Committee to Protect Journalists

         New York, May 1, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release today of an Al-Jazeera cameraman who was held for six years without charge or trial at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

         Al-Jazeera reported late this afternoon that Sami al-Haj had been freed and was on a plane that was expected to land in Khartoum, Sudan, tonight. The Pentagon had no immediate comment.

         “Sami al-Haj is the latest journalist to be freed by the U.S. military after spending years behind bars on the basis of secret evidence and without formal charge or trial,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “We are delighted that Sami al-Haj can finally be reunited with his family and friends. But his detention for six years, without the most basic due process, is a grave injustice and represents a threat to all journalists working in conflict areas.”

         Al-Haj, who is Sudanese, is the second journalist to be freed by the U.S. military in the last month after being held for a prolonged period without due process. On April 16, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was released from U.S. custody in Iraq, ending a two-year ordeal in which he fended off unsubstantiated accusations from the U.S. military that he had collaborated with Iraqi insurgents. All told, 10 journalists have been held for extended periods by the U.S. military and then released without charge.

         The U.S. military continues to hold Jawed Ahmad, a journalist for Canada’s CTV, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Ahmad has been held without charge since October 26, 2007, according to CTV. “Jawed Ahmad should be charged or released immediately,” Simon added.

         Al-Haj, 38, was detained in December 2001 by Pakistani forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border while covering the U.S. led-offensive to unseat the Taliban. He was later transported by the U.S. military to Guantanamo Bay in June 2002. He began a hunger strike in January 2007 to protest his continued incarceration.

         The only confirmed journalist held at Guantanamo, al-Haj was never charged with a crime and he never faced trial. U.S. military authorities accused him of working as a financial courier for armed groups and assisting al-Qaeda and extremist figures. Al-Haj’s attorney, Clive Stafford Smith, called the accusations baseless and said that his client has committed no crime.

         Stafford Smith said that al-Haj’s detention was political and that U.S. interrogators focused almost exclusively on obtaining intelligence on Al-Jazeera and its staff. At one point, he said, military officials told al-Haj that he would be released if he agreed to inform U.S. intelligence authorities about the satellite network’s activities. Al-Haj refused, he said…

         Al-Haj’s hunger strike wasn’t a light matter:

         Al-Jazeera man ‘close to death’ at Guantanamo Bay – Americas, World – The Independent

         Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese national, is 250 days into a hunger strike which he began in protest over his detention without charge or trial in January 2002. But British and American doctors, who have been given exclusive access to his interview notes, say there is very strong evidence that he has given up his fight for life, experiencing what doctors recognise as “passive suicide”

3. 

   on July 15, 2009 at 3:40 pm

   It’s funny how with some murders we’re allowed to presume the killers and in others we have to absolutely avoid plumbing the obvious.

4. 

   on July 15, 2009 at 3:57 pm

   The problem with 8 years of Bush-Cheney is that when Iran tracks down and jails journalists, or Russia assassinates loudmouths and troublemakers, well, there just is not just much moral highground to stand on.

5. 

   poemless on July 15, 2009 at 5:34 pm

   Cut it with the demonizing a whole effing nationality, Booman.

   Medvedev is pissed and has ordered and investigation.  The relationship between Kadyrov’s gang and the Kremlin is real but each one thinks they are the ones really calling the shots so it’s really anyone’s guess who is to blame here.  FWIW, Kadyrov’s people are nuts enough to do this type of thing.  I don’t think anyone in the Kremlin or (Russian) White House have anything to gain by having activists or journalists killed at this point.  Plus there is the possibility of individuals not acting on orders from the top.

   One thing I never hear people mention is that the people who automatically blame “the Kremlin” or VVP himself when a journalist is murdered in a part of the world where crime and murder are rife are the same people who will mew and moan and cry foul that people like Khodorkovsky do not get a fair trial.

   Either you support due process or do not.  I do.  

   I’m getting really effing sick of both parties in this story.  I think both these martyred activist-journalists and the Kremlin are given too much import and reach in these stories.  I find it implausible that one story out of Novaya Gazetta is going to bring down the whole Russian Government, or that people trying to run a county as vast and with so many problems as Russia have nothing better to do than hunt down relatively unknown journalists for game.  

   I’m also really effing sick of people who clearly have no clue what they are talking about trying to sound profound.  Your statement is neither reality based nor frankly up the the journalistic standards you demand of your peers.  Furthermore, the talking points you are mimicking are classic neo-con posturing.  I’m sure they’re happy to learn they have a friend in the progressive blogosphere.

   • 

     camis1 on July 15, 2009 at 9:55 pm

     Well said! I find nothing to be gained by russophobic attitudes. Don’t quite understand NYT journalism.

6. 

   poemless on July 15, 2009 at 5:41 pm

   Also, while insanely courageous, she was not a journalist, it appears.

7. 

   poemless on July 15, 2009 at 6:00 pm

   You might have bothered to use this story as an opportunity to draw attention to Memorial, the group she is said to have belonged to.

   Memorial is wide-ranging and simultaneous scrupulous historical research of topics that were until recently inaccessible to Russian scholars: the GULag, the history of the security organizations VChK (the Cheka)-OGPU-NKVD-MGB-KGB, statistics on political repression in the Soviet Union, and dissidents’ resistance during the Khrushchev-Brezhnev era. Memorial is a number of international research projects, in which internationally recognized research centers in the humanities acts as partners. It is a support program for young researchers throughout Russia. It is the struggle for free access to historical information, to the past, which was hidden from us for so long.

   Memorial is information about the violation of human rights on the territory of the former Soviet Union. This information is valued highly not only by international human rights organizations, but also by international organizations, such as the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Memorial is the undertaking of risky observation missions to “hot spots” on the territory of the CIS. Memorial is mountains of factual material, collected in regions of armed conflict. It is painstaking verification and analysis of the collected material, and the preparation and publication of reports on the conditions in Nagorno-Karabakh, Tajikistan, Transdnistria, in the zone of Ossetian-Ingushetian conflict, and, finally, in Chechnya. Memorial is the initiator for the formation of an anti-war front, memorably uniting more than 100 social and political organizations in January 1995. Memorial is an organization for social and legal counseling for refugees and displaced persons in many regions of Russia. It is the collection of information about current political prisoners on the territory of the former Soviet Union. It is an ongoing struggle against ethnic discrimination. Memorial is protests, meetings, and miscellaneous publications that seek to protect freedoms and peace.

   If you feel so strongly about the work she was doing, You could support them, I suppose.

   Also, by way of contetx, the President of Ingushetia was recently the victim of an assassination attempt.

   Today’s assassination attempt [of the Ingush President] underscores the growing instability in Russia’s northern Caucuses, the scene of two Kremlin wars in neighbouring Chechnya.

   The current insurgency is no longer waged by separatists but by Islamist fundamentalists rebelling against federal authorities.

   Ingushetia and Dagestan have now overtaken Chechnya as the most unstable republics in Russia’s troubled and mountainous southern flank.

   In recent months, there has been a series of high-profile attacks on security forces.

   “The situation has been deteriorating over the past several years,” Tanya Lokshina, of Human Rights Watch, said today.

   “The appointment of Yevkurov was a clear indication that the Kremlin realised it had to pay attention to the developing crisis in Ingushetia.”

   Medvedev appointed Yevkurov, a former paratroop officer, as president in October, when he replaced Murat Zyazikov.

   Zyazikov, a former KGB general, was blamed by critics for failing to calm the rebellion and was detested by much of the local population.

   According to Lokshina, insurgents created a single movement in the wake of the Kremlin’s second war in Chechnya in 1999.

   “It’s no longer about Chechen separatists or about single insurgency groups. It’s about an insurgency movement in the region as a whole,” she said.

   “The insurgents in the north Caucasus are clearly jihadist in nature. We are talking about Islamist fundamentalists who have declared their official objective to oust the authorities from the Caucasus and to create an [Islamist] emirate.

   “That’s the long-term objective. In the short term, it is to destabilise the situation as much as possible.

   “In recent years, the government’s Chechen-style counter-insurgency tactics have created a situation where the population has started to view the government as a worse enemy than the insurgents.”

   Estemirova was killed in Ingushetia.