Anna Politkovskaya was Russian writer and journalist. She was known for reporting human rights violation in Chechnya, she wrote for liberal Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. She was critical of Russian President Putin. She criticized him in her book “ Putin’s Russia”. She was also critical of Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov. She wrote about Chechnya in her book “ Small Corner of Hell”
“People often tell me that I am a pessimist, that I don’t believe in the strength of the Russian people, that I am obsessive in my opposition to Putin and see nothing beyond that,If anybody thinks they can take comfort from the ‘optimistic’ forecast, let them do so. It is certainly the easier way, but it is the death sentence for our grandchildren.”
-Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in an elevator. Five people were arrested in connection with the murder. Motive for murder is not clear. After death her writings were published in form of book called “Russian Diary”.
One more journalist who got killed for reporting problems of Chechens was Natalya Estemirova. Natalya used to write articles for Novaya Gazeta and worked with Anna.
An award was named after Anna, the award recognizes “a woman human rights defender from a conflict zone in the world who, like Anna, stands up for the victims of this conflict, often at great personal risk”
One such winner is Marie Colvin of USA. She covered conflicts in Kosovo , Chechnya, Sri Lanka and Syria. She lost her eye while covering Sri Lanka civil war, still she managed to complete her report. She wrote about human rights violation of Sri Lankan Tamils. She was killed while covering Syrian war.
Three Pathan women from Pakistan and Afghanistan was won this award- Malalai Joya for being critical of presence of warlords and drug lords in Afghanistan’s Parliament, Malala Yousafzai for cause of women’s education in Taliban dominated Swat Valley of Pakistan, Malala also won Noble Prize and Gulalai Ismail also for resisting Taliban and fighting for woman’s rights in Pakistan through her NGO “Aware Girls”.
“I am convinced that without a secular democracy, we will not achieve peace in Pakistan.”
– Gulalai Ismail
This year along with Gulalai Ismail, surprise winner was Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh . Gauri Lankesh published a weekly named after herself called Gauri Lankesh Patrike. Average readership of weekly was around 5000. Gauri Lankesh neither went to any war zone nor much is known about her activity in area of human rights, except that few Naxalites surrendered due to her efforts.
After working for some magazines, she joined her father’s publication after his death. But there was clash between her and her brother. Her brother accused her of stealing printer and scanner from office. After that she was on her own.
Gauri Lankesh was childish and lacked maturity of responsible journalist. She was critical of BJP and Modi and most of her time was spent in tweeting and retweeting jokes related to Modi or BJP. In this she was joined by journalists and individuals whose maturity level matched hers. She was sentenced to jail and fined for defaming BJP leaders. She managed to get bail. All this resulted in her weekly getting neglected and due to lack of funds, readership and rising debts, she was planning to close the weekly.
Unfortunately, before she could do something meaningful she was shot dead. The home minister of Karnataka State has told that they will soon arrest the culprits. Hopefully, police will catch culprits and we all will know the real reason behind killing.
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