Another Russian fighting for human rights and the rule of law has been murdered in Vladimir Putin’s Moscow, wrote The Washington Post in its editorial yesterday. Excerpts: Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who defended Chechens brutalized by Russian troops and journalists who wrote about the abuses, was shot in the head this week by a masked man carrying a silencer-equipped pistol. An opposition journalist who tried to intervene, Anastasia Baburova, was also fatally shot in the head. This occurred in broad daylight, on a busy street in central Moscow less than half-a-mile from the Kremlin. It was another demonstration that assassinations are a dominating feature of political life under Putin’s regime.
Markelov, 34, was killed just after holding a news conference. In recent days, he had been fighting against the early release from prison of a Russian colonel who had been convicted of brutally murdering a Chechen woman. The officer, Yuri Budanov, has become a symbol for many of Russia’s gross violations of human rights in Chechnya, since he was one of the few officers ever held accountable. Budanov’s release a year before the end of his sentence prompted protest demonstrations in Chechnya; Markelov pointed out that Budanov’s release contrasted sharply with the treatment of nonviolent political prisoners such as former Yukos oil executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was denied parole.
The larger story here is of serial murders of Putin’s opponents, at home and abroad. It is possible that Putin and his security services had nothing to do with any of the murders. But it is a fact that the Russian leader has not pressed for justice. What is indisputable is that Russians live in a political climate in which those who criticize Putin or the human rights violations of his government can be murdered with impunity.
