ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA FUND
ON OCT.7 IN MOSCOW, A PROMINENT RUSSIAN ON OKTOBER 7, 2006, JOURNALIST AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER, ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA, WAS KILLED. SHE WAS A SYMBOL OF THE WORLD RESISTANCE TO THE HORROR THAT HAD BEEN HAPPENNINING IN CHECHNYA SINCE 1994, AND THE LAST FREPRESENTATIVE OF THE FREE AND INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM IN RUSSIA.
As you may know, ten years after the catastrophic 1994-1996 war, which killed almost 100,000 people and reduced the capital of Grozny to rubble, the armed conflict in Chechnya still continues, and the death toll currently hit 250,000. The Russian authorities and army, the paramilitary units and now their ally--Kadyrov’s guards continue to violate human rights and humanitarian law, including acts of torture, extra judicial executions and disappearances. The recent murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was about to publish her last news story about human rights abuses in Chechnya, demonstrated once again that the conflict is far from resolved. She was the 42d journalist killed in Russia since 1991
Anna Politkovskaya was almost the only journalist who had courage to go to the war-turn republic and collect evidences about the horror in Chechnya. The access to Chechnya is extremely difficult and dangerous. Politkovskaya gave her life trying to help the dying nation as much as she could. The small part of the Chechens could escape Chechnya -- many with her help-- and reach some European countries (Poland, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, France Belgium, Sweden, Norway), as well as Azerbaijan and Turkey. But even there, few of them got refugee status and a corresponding support. Many have so little for their living that they hardly can survive. I leave alone an acute need of legal services that very few of Chechens and of Russion political prisoners can't afford
In trying to continue the work of Anna Politkovskaya in her last deadly effort to help the nation, we, of a Massachusetts-based humanitarian organization Chechen Cultural Center (Former Boston Committee Against Ethnic Cleansing), being strong protestors against the war in Chechnya, created memorial fund "Anna Politkovskaya Fund” to help the Chechen refugees around the world, and to the families of killed journalists and Human Rights activists.Many of them are miserable.
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