Politkovskaya’s Last Column
As I’m sure many of you know, last Saturday journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in her home. TomPaine.com has a translation up of the piece that she was working on.
An excerpt:
Every day I see dozens of folders. These are copies of the criminals files of those whom we have imprisoned or are still investigating for “terrorism.”
Why “terrorism” in quotes? Because the vast majority of these people are “government-manufactured terrorists.” And this practice of “manufacturing terrorists” has not only replaced, by 2006, any sort of actual fight against terrorism, but is now beginning to provoke those who would avenge its abuses—potential terrorists. When prosecutors and courts work not in the interest of the law or of punishing the guilty but for political hire, structuring counter-terrorist accountability so as to best please the Kremlin, criminal procedures are manufactured on an assembly line. And this conveyor of “genuine admissions of guilt” perfectly fulfills the need for good indicators in the “war on terrorism” in the Northern Caucuses.
