On Monday 19th January at 2:30pm, Stanislav Markelov and his companion, the 25-year old freelance journalist Anastasia Baburova ,were assassinated in Moscow's city centre.
Markelov, only 34, was a human rights lawyer, a champion of the rule of law and a Russian patriot. His assassin did not have the courage to face his victim, shooting him from behind and fleeing to the nearby Kropotkinskaya metro station.
Everyone who cares for Russia, the law, and the all too delicate and tenuous relationship between the two, will mourn the death of Markelov. They will mourn the death of a good and decent man whose humanity was matched only by learning and doggedness. However, they will also mourn the end of his tireless work in defence of those usually deprived of access to the law and to justice. Those such as Elza Kungayeva; only one among many he represented.
Such work is increasingly dangerous, and often fatal, in a country where international posturing and economic extremes can obscure a real systemic crisis at the heart of Russia. Inevitably, the murder to Markelov and Baburova will be marshaled by those who wish to occupy their time engaged in facile Kremlin-bashing. However, the motives of those (for assuredly it was more than one person) behind the killings are unlikely to be so straightforward and attributable. They are more likely to lie in the disenfranchisement, racism, and criminality which is increasingly creeping to the surface in Moscow as elsewhere in the vast country.
We offer our condolences to the family and many friends of Markelov and Baburova, and good luck to those professionals charged with bringing justice to them and to the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment