FOREWORDS

‘Go to where the silence is and say something.’

Amy Goodman, Columbia Journalism Review, 1994

In early 2005 I was invited by PEN, the organisation devoted to the promotion of literature and freedom of expression, to present an award to Anna Politkovskaya. I was delighted to have the opportunity of meeting her as I knew her work and greatly admired her courageous opposition both to the Chechen conflict and to President Putin’s authoritarian regime. Her fearlessness in the face of grave danger made her one of the few international journalists whom human rights activists and lawyers held in awe.

My tribute to Anna saluted her uncompromising coverage of the horrors which had befallen the people of Chechnya; it recalled the torture and terrifying mock execution to which she had been subjected by Russian troops for documenting the atrocities perpetrated against the civilian population; likewise, her reports of the 2002 Moscow theatre siege and its bloody denouement, and her resolute defiance of threats from the state authorities and other shady operators within the Russian political firmament.

We owed her a debt of gratitude for helping the West reach a far better understanding of the emerging landscape in post-Soviet Russia and for shining a clearer light on the true nature of the occupation of Chechnya, a brutal conflict wilfully misrepresented as Russia’s private front in the war on terror. No democracy is worthy of the name if freedom of the press is curtailed or writers and journalists are crushed; yet here was a writer who – at great personal risk – defied state intimidation to speak truth to power.

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Anna received the reward with good humour and humility. As this collection of her writing shows, the reach of her journalism extended far beyond coverage of individual cataclysmic events. She frequently lifted the veil on more systemic inhumanity which did not attract as much international interest. Her tenacious investigations involved dogged correspondence and days sitting in court. Her coverage of the case of ‘The Cadet’, for example, reveals her staying power and commitment to reporting long trials which might have defeated others. Sergey Lapin – The Cadet – was a member of the Russian military in Chechnya believed to be responsible for many of the ‘disappearances’ of Chechens dragged from their homes, never to be seen again. He had a reputation as a torturer and extra-judicial killer but despite efforts to bring him to trial was able to manipulate the legal process by intimidation and covert influence. It was Anna’s belief that the courts’ failures to deliver justice must be documented and that it was the role of the press, on behalf of those who had suffered at his hands, to demand transparency and accountability. She had met the wives and mothers of The Cadet’s victims, heard their stories and knew he bore responsibility. Her fight for them helped lead to his eventual conviction.

After the award ceremony we sat drinking wine and talking politics. Anna painted a haunting portrait of Putin’s Russia, a country governed by an administration which bore many of the hallmarks of Stalin’s; here was a land whose own secret services suppressed civil liberties and where fear stalked universities, newsrooms and every corridor in which democracy might have flourished.

Anna had been on the receiving end of death threats delivered over the telephone and posted on the internet. Articles had been published defaming her, she had been treated with derision and socially ostracised to the extent that some former friends and colleagues avoided contact for fear of becoming tarnished by association. She spoke with sadness about the toll on her private life, the effects on her family and children. Yet her isolation and aloneness, instead of diminishing her, appeared to have become a source of determination and strength, as though she had crossed some Rubicon and was now beyond ordinary conceptions of fear or courage.

Shortly before the prize-giving she had been poisoned as she flew to Rostov-on-Don to cover the Beslan hostage crisis. Armed terrorists were holding over a thousand school children and adults captive, a siege which ended in massive loss of life. But Anna was never to arrive; as we sat into the night she described the episode with terrifying vividness. How she had made telephone calls to colleagues which must have been intercepted. How she had boarded the plane and accepted a small cup of black tea before take-off only to awaken in a hospital ward. Despite ourselves, we tend to nurture the fragile hope that heaping international honours upon those who make a stand, who defend freedom of expression, justice and liberty, affords them some cloak of immunity from retribution, however powerful, lawless or vengeful their enemies. In Anna’s case such optimism was ill-founded.

She was shot dead on 7 October 2006, news which came like a physical blow. Yet whatever driving force gave her the strength to persist had stayed with her until the end. She was a truly exceptional woman, whose bravery in confronting oppression is her legacy to the world and remains a source of inspiration for us all.

I remember taking leave of her the night of the award and asking whether she might not think of leaving Russia, at least temporarily. She held my hand, smiling, and said, ‘Exile is not for me. That way they win.’

Helena Kennedy QC