Authoritarian Russia

Russia under Vladimir Putin continues its slide toward authoritarianism.  In October, the prominent journalist Anna Politkovskaya was assassinated.  A reporter for NOVAYA GAZETA, Politkovskaya was the only journalist who regularly reported from Chechnya on the Russian occupation.  At the time of her death, Politkovskaya was about to publish an article about the forced confessions and murders that form part of what Putin calls his "war on terror."

Although hundreds attended Politkovskaya's funeral, the mood was somber.  Like other independent intellectuals and activists, Politkovskaya had been receiving death threats on reactionary nationalist internet sites.  The government also harasses critics, as in the arrests last July of many of those traveling to a conference on "The Other Russia" held on the eve of the G-8 Summit in Moscow.

Violent attacks on ethnic minorities have escalated as well.  In September a pogrom took place in the town of Kondopoga, in the Karelia district.  After a fight in a bar between ethnic Russians and immigrants from the Caucasus in which two Russians died, Russian mobs gathered, ordering all "blacks" to leave town within 24 hours. Violent rioting then commenced, in which young neo-Nazis from out of the area also participated.  Police waited three days to intervene.