Nyet To Dissing Vlad, Comrade

The New York Times ran an editorial today noting that journalists from all over the world are going to converge in Russia next week to make a statement on behalf of their colleagues who have been persecuted and/or killed in the name of doing their jobs.

I don’t really have much to add except that I applaud them, and as if to emphasize the need to investigate and support a free press in that country, we have this story that appeared in the Moscow Times today of a journalist who wrote a column for a weekly paper in a Russian suburb criticizing the reburial of the remains of six World War II pilots and, as a result, had his care fire-bombed (though, of course, that’s not what the police are saying about it).

And let us not forget the courageous example of this Russian reporter, whose memory will no doubt be invoked by those who will be arriving in that country in a few days.