Anna Politkovskaya, Russia
Anna Politkovskaya, one of the most admired journalists of her generation, was shot dead in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006. She had been receiving death threats since 1999, after reporting that Russian forces were committing human rights abuses in Chechnya. The Russian Prosecutor-General announced in May 2008 that the Chechen Rustam Makhmudov had been charged in absentia with Politkovskaya's murder and an international warrant for his arrest was issued. In June the Investigative Committee laid murder charges against three men, a former police officer and two ethnic Chechen brothers. In November, after jurors refused to enter the courtroom in the presence of the media, the judge continued the trial behind closed doors. On February 19, 2009 after a Moscow jury acquitted three suspects of Politkovskaya's murder, a spokesman from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe called the failure to resolve the case “a human rights crisis”.

Read more and take action>>