Klebnikov Murder Five Years On
By Sean at 9 July, 2009, 2:48 pm
Five years ago, Paul Klebnikov was murdered as he left his office in Moscow. Shot nine times. See the Russia Today video above for the details of the case. Since Klebnikov’s murder in 2004, the number of journalists killed in Russia ranges from tens to 44 depending on how you categorize them. The number of journalists attacked is even higher. According to the Glasnost Defense Foundation, since 2004 the number of journalists who’ve been attacked because of their work is in the hundreds. Sadly, the frequency in which reporters are attacked and killed in Russia makes Klebnikov’s death a grim statistic.
I was fortunate enough to meet the Klebnikov family last November when Paul’s widow, Musa, invited me to speak at their annual event to honor Mikhail Fishman, the recipient for the Paul Klebnikov Prize for Excellence in Journalism. Musa, and Paul’s brothers Peter and Michael were very gracious. And they have created a wonderful community of friends, family, and colleagues to commemorate Klebnikov’s work. It was an honor to be invited and to meet them. My thoughts go out to them this day.
It is also thanks to them that Klebnikov’s death is not simply a grim statistic. His memory is constantly evoked thanks to their tenacity in putting pressure on American and Russian officials to find Klebnikov’s killers. One can only hope that the announcement that officials from the US Justice Department will join the case will bear fruit.
His memory is also kept alive by his colleagues at Forbes, who have published a special report “Remembering Paul Klebnikov” to commemorate the five years since his death.
There isn’t much more to say. The dangers of exposing the malfeasance of rich and powerful in Russia are well known. Too well known.
All I can say is, fight on Musa, fight on . . .
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Argh. Sean, have you ever read Conversation with a Barbarian?
By the way, Klebnikov did not expose the malfeasance of Russia’s rich and powerful. He exposed the malfeasance of two people specifically. Who are those two people?
Thanks for this thoughtful post. I really do feel that if the prosecutors and courts could make a real effort to give justice to the Klebnikov family, it would be a watershed moment that could lead to other openings in the justice system.
Sean, why aren’t you interested in the number of journalists murdered in 1990s, before Khlebnikov’s murder?
Is that because journalists murdered in great numbers in 1990s were murdered in a democratic system, and therefore it’s just OK.
And journalists murdered in 2000s were murdered under totalitarianism, and therefore unlike victims of democracy they are to be discussed?
I’m just interested to understand your logics.
Sean, indeed, how do you explain, that by CPJ count, the number of journalists killed in 1990s — 30 — is 1.5 times higher than the number of journalists killed in whole 2000s, i.e. 20.
IMHO, the only possible explanation is that under Putin the life steadily IMPROVES.
http://cpj.org/deadly/cpj-database.xls
So, one point is that
1) Democracy murders are good. Totalitarianism murders are bad.
But what about those 3 journalists murdered in Iraq this year?
Haidar Hashim Suhail
Suhaib Adnan
Alaa Abdel-Wahab
Seemingly, they are not even people at all.
So there’s a next point:
2) Journalists murdered in Iraq do not count.
Sure thing, the war in Iraq is not the reason to stop Paul’s case investigation.
Khabar:
Sure thing, if I was an official responsible for P. Khlebnikov’s case investigation, I wouldn’t stop it. But I’m not even a tiny bit involved.
Do you think there’s ever a chance that murders of those poor Iraqi journalists would be ever investigated? And guilty ones would be persecuted by the law?
Russia is not Iraq.
Evgeny, you strike me as the kind of guy who is fascinated by arguing about which was the worst holocaust in history, or which was the worst -ism, etc.
Violence against journalists is always bad. That Sean here remembers one who died in the current decade isn’t to spit on those who died ten years before. Just calm down.
Kevin Rothrock:
Unlike you, I’m easy with an idea that there are 1-2 journalist murders a year here. No, it doesn’t shock me. I accept life as it is. And the steady improvement I see here over the last years is not a bad thing IMHO.
Kevin Rothrock:
And note, that you are shocked of an idea of journalists murders only because it’s an approppriate way in your society. It doesn’t mean it’s a true way. What about tens thousands of suicides a year in our countries, what about millions of traffic accidents? Ultimately, what about the idea that sooner or later all of us will die? Does it shock you?
We can all hope to enjoy the improvement that is graduating from anarchic journalist assassination to slightly less frequent, and more predictable journalist assassination. Call me a sentimentalist, but it all still seems pretty “bad” to me.
Kevin Rothrock:
Of course, it’s bad. What then? Without Putin it would be worse. The key trouble is not Putin, but the destructive inertia of 1990s.
Anarchy/Russian democracy and the Power Vertical/’Totalitarianism’ are both pretty lousy.
I don’t think it’s illegitimate for you to prefer one over the other, but this is, I’d argue, just another page in those debates that produce nothing but humiliation for everybody involved. (“Who’s worse: Nazis or Commies? Who suffered more: Jews or Armenians?” etc.) Trying to prove that one mass crime is worse than another inevitably degrades into apologetics.
If Sean’s post criticized Putin for murdering innocent democrats (it doesn’t) and if he lauded the 1990s and Boris Yeltsin (he didn’t), then perhaps you’d be in the right place to sing from the mountaintop about how Putin is the lesser of two evils, or – as your comment about the “destructive inertia of the 1990s” might indicate – an innocent leader merely trying to steer his country to safety.
But since this isn’t a rewrite of the Black Book of Communism, I wonder if you shouldn’t calm down?
Kevin Rothrock:
Your point can be agreed on, but one point: “mass crime”. Murders of journalists don’t amount to “mass murders”, Holocaust or genocide of Armenians. Instead, they are barely noticeable on the background of socially important murders (including murders of Russia’s officials, outstanding police officers, etc.)
Kevin Rothrock:
If you want my opinion, there’s no great difference between 90s and 00s. Whatever this might mean.
Bravo, Sean. Thanks for the informative post.
Another Western demagogery.