Is Journalism Worth Dying For__ Final Dispatches - Anna Politkovskaya [206]
On behalf of the students of the Physics Faculty of Omsk State University I offer condolences to the family, colleagues, and everybody who knew Anna Politkovskaya. I appeal to Anna’s colleagues and very much beg them to continue to work, to write, and to tell the truth about our lives.
Victor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine
The news of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, well known as a journalist and human rights defender, has been received in Ukraine with a sense of great sorrow and disquiet. Please accept my sincere condolences on the occasion of this irreparable loss. People in Ukraine will remember Anna Politkovskaya as a courageous person and professional who defended the high ideals of democracy and freedom of speech. I hope that those guilty of committing this terrible crime will be found and justly punished.
Akhmed Zakayev, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
The Chechen people has been outraged to learn of the vile contract killing of Anna Politkovskaya who has been a fearless witness of its torments of recent years. Motivated by human sympathy and a sense of professional duty, Anna never succumbed to fear, or to the official anti-Chechen hysteria. She was one of the few Russian journalists who systematically, year after year, exposed the crimes against humanity which the Russian military machine visited upon the defenceless civilian population of the Chechen Republic.
The memory of this great Russian woman, who shared the tragedy of the Chechen people and did everything she could to convey the truth about it to the world community, will forever remain in our hearts and will, in the course of time, be perpetuated in the Republic of Chechnya.
TRIBUTES AND RECOLLECTIONS BY COLLEAGUES FROM NOVAYA GAZETA, FAMILY AND FRIENDS
Anna’s Mother Discharged from Hospital
Novaya gazeta, November 16, 2006
[Anna’s mother, Raisa Mazepa, went into hospital shortly before the death of her husband. She was in the Clinic of the President’s Management Board and was being prepared for an operation.]
“We kept her husband’s death from her for two days,” Alexander Altunin, manager of the surgical department recalls. “Then we decided to tell her, after first giving her a sedative injection. She bore her grief with great dignity, and even agreed to stay in hospital. We performed a major operation on her. Raisa Alexandrovna was anaemic and we had to give her many injections of drugs, nutrient solutions and blood substitutes. She took it stoically. Her daughters visited her constantly. For something like that suddenly to happen …”
When news of the murder came out, the television and telephone were switched off in Raisa’s ward. For the first day the family concealed Anna’s death from her, but they realized they could not continue to do so for long: reports of the murder were in every edition of the news. At any moment Raisa might go out into the corridor and see a television or talk to one of the patients.
“Yury and Lena phoned me and said it was probably best that she should be told,” Alexander Altunin recalls. “I phoned the cardiologist, Raisa was given a cardiogram, and we established that her heart was in good order. In the morning she was given a sedative and then her daughter Lena came with her husband. Physically Raisa bore her grief reasonably well, partly, no doubt, because of the sedative. I spoke to her the day after the murder. She was very stoical, told me about herself and her work in the USA, and then said that her daughter’s death was like a stab in the back.”
When Raisa was discharged from the hospital, she was feeling well, walking steadily, and her family sent her off to convalesce. She is recovering from the operation rapidly now.
“During the whole time she was in hospital Raisa Alexandrovna never once showed her grief. She is a very reserved person, and very brave.”
Contact through Prayer Alexander Politkovsky
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is strife, harmony
Where there