Assign. # 6 The Lack of Free Media in Russia

The Russian court acquitted the suspects of Ana Politkovskaya's murder. However the presiding judge Yevgeni Zubov ordered the case to be reopened. He said that he would give investigators material evidences. It is interesting how a day after the suspects were released, all of a sudden the presiding judge has material evidences. This is an indicator, one of many, that something in the Russian judicial system is rotten. What excuses Russia, however, is the fact that all post communist countries in Eastern Europe experience difficulties in the same sphere. What is much more troublesome in Russia is the lack of freedom of speech and the lack of free press and media.

In the 1990s, during the Yeltsin period, journalists and regular people could exercise and enjoy the right to do and say whatever they please. Since 2000, when Putin became a president, that is no longer the case. The Yeltsin period might have been chaotic and unstable but at least the journalists could practice their jobs freely without the fear that they may be arrested or killed. As the New York Times newspaper mentions, since the year 2000, 16 journalists in the Russian Federation have been killed. It does not take a genius to guess that all of them touched upon some political matter or crossed the interests of Mother Russia, which is equal to crossing the interests of Putin.

Ana Politkovskaya was trying to cover the Chechen War's impact on the civilians. She found some disturbing facts about the way the Russian soldiers treated the local population. As a result, she was forced to leave Chechnya. However, she did not stop dealing with the issue and she was finally killed in 2006. Some might say that she was dangerous because she could discover facts that could possibly endanger the national security of the Russian Federation.

But what about the other 15 murdered journalists in Russia? What about the case of Grigory Nekhorsov and Moskovsky Korrespondent newspaper? The newspaper published an article stating that Putin would divorce his wife and marry the much younger rhythmic gymnastic Alina Kabaeva. Putin announced that this was not true and as a result the newspaper's editor Nekhorsov was fired and the newspaper was shut down on April 19, 2008. So one could see that Putin used and still uses his powers to control the media, not only in regards of political issues, but also when it comes to his personal life. If we have to judge Russia's level of democracy by its free press, it is down to zero.