Blue_Tires
Blue_Tires's JournalNemtsov joins long list of those assassinated in post-Soviet Russia
Moscow — If the track record is anything to go by, Russians may never find out who gunned down liberal activist Boris Nemtsov on a bridge beside the Kremlin last Friday, or why.
Mr. Nemtsov, who served as deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin, is by far the highest ranking official to meet such a fate. But he is only the latest of well over a dozen high-profile Russian politicians, human rights activists, and journalists who've been murdered over the last two decades in similarly professional style and almost certainly for political reasons.
And those are just the figures whose deaths made international headlines, such as investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya and human rights worker Natalya Estimirova, and it doesn't begin to illustrate the breadth of political assassinations in post-Soviet Russia. A compendium of journalists from across Russia's 11 time zones who've been slain in the line of work since 1993, prepared by Russian non-governmental groups, runs to well over 300 names.
Not a single one of those major cases, and very few of the lesser-known ones, has ever been fully solved. Even as tens of thousands of Russians gathered in downtown Moscow Sunday to mourn Nemtsov, the few people who keep track of such things were marking the 20th anniversary of the gangland-style murder of Vladislav Listyev, one of Russia's most celebrated political journalists and chief editor of Russia's public TV network. In terse remarks to reporters, spokesman for the Kremlin's Investigative Committee – the same body charged with hunting down Nemtsov's killers – insisted that Mr. Listyev's case is not closed and "investigative measures are under way to uncover the mastermind of this crime and every accomplice."
Oleg Orlov, chair of Memorial, Russia's largest human rights network, says this dismal record is the main reason most Russians shrug and say they doubt Nemtsov's murderers will ever be found. "Law and order is just on the surface; underneath there is no control. Nemtsov devoted himself to struggling for a law-governed state, but he fell victim to this reality," he says.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0302/Nemtsov-joins-long-list-of-those-assassinated-in-post-Soviet-Russia
Meanwhile, Snowden is living the charmed life in Moscow, and Greenwald posts a pro-Putin and pro-RT column three days apart...Time to start asking questions...
Greenwald shamelessly shills for Russia Today (again)...
https://twitter.com/cjcmichel/status/572501639476711424https://twitter.com/Knobelsdorff/status/572489493523111937
More info:
http://rtwatchcuj.tumblr.com/
And for those of you who would jump to proclaim that Greenwald's concern over this issue is legitimate, let me point out some stories he *isn't* reporting (or even commenting) on:
Journalists' safety and media ownership – two challenges for Brazil's President Rousseff
https://www.ifex.org/brazil/2014/11/10/rsf_recommendations/
Brazil's Dilma Rousseff is popular, but not among news media
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/03/world/la-fg-brazil-hostile-media-20130304
Brazil gathers experts to discuss media regulation
https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/brazil%E2%80%99s-government-gathers-experts-discuss-media-regulation
As Brazilian elections near, free expression debate continues to polarize
https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/brazilian-elections-near-free-expression-debate-continues-polarize
Brazil: Humiliation of young TV opens debate on media regulation
http://en.wikinoticia.com/lifestyle/social-criticism/118398-brazil-humiliation-of-young-tv-opens-debate-on-media-regulation
Halftime for the Brazilian press -- Will justice prevail over censorship and violence?
http://cpj.org/reports/2014/05/halftime-for-brazilian-press-censorship-violence.php
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