The muzzling of independent #Russia media, incl. #NovayaGazeta, is a huge blow. In my forthcoming book about #HumanRights heroes, I profile NG cofounder Anna Politkovskaya. Her relentless #reporting on Chechnya shed light on a horrific conflict. THREAD laphamsquarterly.org/contributors/p…
#Politkovskaya kept her focus on the human toll. Unlike some who craved war reporting, Politkovskaya said she was “afraid of everything that shoots.” Yet she was determined. Even @Novaya_Gazeta “cut out the toughest parts” she wrote/2 newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/h…
“People call the newspaper & send letters with one and the same question,” she once wrote. “Why are you writing about this? Why are you scaring us? Why do we need to know this?"/3
"For one simple reason," Politkovskaya responded. "As contemporaries of this war, we will be held responsible for it. The classic #Soviet excuse of not being there and not taking part in anything personally won’t work.”/4
Her compassion included #russiansoldiers sent to fight a war they knew nothing about and & could die for. Politkovskaya's eye was on the human, always /5 time.com/3927017/yuri-k…
“Here are the helicopters, going for another round,” she wrote in A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from #Chechnya. “They fly so low that you can see the gunners’ hands and faces... /6 press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
...Some say that they can even see their eyes. But this is fear talking. The main thing is their legs, dangling carelessly in the open hatches. As if they didn’t come to kill, but to let their tired feet get some fresh air.../7
...Their feet are big and scary, and the soles almost seem to touch our faces. The barrels of their guns are squeezed between their thighs. We’re frightened, but we all want to see our killers.”/8
WOW. That last bit--an obscene honesty, a brutal clarity of vision, the eye that cannot NOT see--is Politkovskaya's core. She cannot NOT see. She wrote ALL THE TIME/9 goodreads.com/author/show/59…
The Russian state knew #Politkovskaya had unique access & credibility. In 2002, Chechen rebels seized 912 hostages in a #Moscow theater during a performance of a musical. They asked Politkovskaya to negotiate a peaceful resolution, which failed/10 history.com/this-day-in-hi…
Russian special forces stormed the building after laying down a cloud of gas. 33 Chechens and 130 hostages died. #Putin used the siege to crackdown on press freedom, meaning that reporting was harder than ever /11 rsf.org/en/russia
But Politkovskaya never stopped. She was also an advocate for humanity, traveling constantly & begging the world to stop the carnage./12
“The world capitals flash before my eyes as I campaign for support,” she once wrote.” This spring I’ve been in Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva, Manila, Bonn, Hamburg...Everywhere they invite me to make a speech about ‘the situation in Chechnya,’ but there are zero results”/13
And of course despots and killers like Putin cannot stand this. They cannot stand someone, a woman, who will not shut up. This radical, relentless seeing is their Kryptonite. Politkovskaya's days were numbered/14
On October 7, 2006, neighbors found Politkovskaya shot twice in the elevator of her apartment block. She’d been working on a story about torture by Chechen security force members working with the Russians/15 theguardian.com/world/2016/oct…
Later, Russian police seized her notes, computer & photographs. At the time of her death, she had two children & was about to become a grandmother/16
After a lot of wrangling, in 2014, a Russian court sentenced several men for her murder. However, rights groups pointed out that the people who ordered and planned it remain free, part of a broader trend of impunity for those who kill Putin’s critics/17 aljazeera.com/news/2014/5/21…
I'm thinking about Politkovskaya today & #Ukranians, Russian & international journalists risking their lives to report. It's not going to ultimately be the EU, NATO or US that stops Putin. It will be us, people, who demand action to protect #ukraine /18 nytimes.com/2022/03/03/wor…
I'm not plugging my book here. I just wanted to remember Politkovskaya and share a bit of her important story. If you feel moved, please support groups like @PEN_int @RSF_inter & orgs like @RESCUEorg that support ALL #Refugees /19
Last note: here's the lovely portrait of Politkovskaya that appears in my book, Righting Wrongs. Politkovskaya should always have the last word @ChiReviewPress /END 
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