Another Infamous Milestone

One year ago yesterday, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered (this provides the background).

Also, this Moscow Times article describes the difficulties faced by those who traveled to attend a demonstration in her honor (including Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service blocking a transfer of $30,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy based in the U.S. to stage the event, as well as members of human rights organizations from other countries being denied rooms they had reserved at local hotels).

This New York Times article also tells us that independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Russian prosecutors know the identity of the man who killed her.

And if anyone has any doubt that Russia is sliding back into some version of a dictatorship based not so much in ideology as in something like a “corpocracy” (with the power controlled ultimately by Vladimir Putin and that country’s vast energy market), then you need only read here about how Putin, as opposed to stepping down as president, now intends to run for prime minister after putting his allies in Kremlin leadership positions first to facilitate that outcome.

And as for the Politkovskaya protest…

As of late Sunday, there was no statement from the Kremlin on the anniversary, which was also President Vladimir Putin's 55th birthday.

Not surprising in the least. After all, she warned us, didn’t she?

Update 11/18/08: We'll see.

Update 11/19/08: On second thought, maybe we won't.