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Amongst Russian opposition, opinions are divided: some congratulate the winner, Dmitry Muratov, Editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, whereas others accuse the Nobel Committee of cowardice and compromise. For the latter, the prize ought to have been awarded to Alexei Navalny, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya or Memorial. Who is true? Here’s a private opinion.
When Marie Mendras referred to as me to inform me that the Nobel Peace Prize had simply been awarded to Dmitry Muratov, I jumped for pleasure. The day earlier than, on October 7, Desk Russie had organized a night to commemorate a depressing occasion: the 15th anniversary of the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya. I write “gloomy” as a result of this Thursday, October 7, additionally marked the top of the seek for individuals who had been behind the contract killing: any further, this heinous crime is prescribed. In any case, the seek for the perpetrators of the crime has hit a “glass ceiling”: many Russian commentators are satisfied that the order to kill Anna got here from a excessive degree of energy and that its instigators (or maybe an instigator) have full immunity.
I met Anna in late 1999, when she was not but identified outdoors Russia. She had simply revealed a sequence of experiences in Novaya Gazeta on the beginnings of the second Chechen conflict, and I advised that Robert Laffont publish them in e-book kind. Anna agreed and, in a couple of months, we grew to become buddies. We noticed one another a number of occasions a yr: I usually went to Moscow on a mission, she got here frequently to Paris. After the primary e-book, Laffont didn’t wish to proceed, however I discovered one other writer, Buchet-Chastel, and till Anna’s demise, we revealed three extra books by her, then a set of her articles, posthumously, and a e-book of tributes from her buddies and colleagues.
{Photograph}: Liudmila Barkova / Grani.ru
Once I was going to Moscow, we regularly met at Anna’s home, in that large residence the place she lived along with her two kids, her mom and an enormous canine. However generally we might solely see one another at her newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, and that’s how I acquired to know its editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov. Even then, between 2000 and 2006, Muratov was cautious. He generally curbed Anna’s ardor and made certain that her flamboyant, indignant articles, at all times on the facet of the civilian inhabitants, whoever they had been, didn’t cross a sure pink line: she defended Chechen civilians in order that they might get pleasure from the identical rights and remedy as all different residents of Russia, she denounced the concrete crimes of the navy, with out going as far as to overtly accuse Putin’s regime, nor Putin himself, of conflict crimes, for instance. The readers of the newspaper had been left to attract their very own conclusions.
Muratov saved Anna’s life on a number of events. I’ll point out two conditions, however there have been others. As soon as she was arrested by an officer in Chechnya and put in an enormous gap the place she was subjected to a mock execution. It was Muratov’s alert and high-level contacts that led to her launch. On one other event, in 2004, she was poisoned on a aircraft to Beslan in the course of the hostage disaster, and it was Muratov’s promptness that allowed for correct remedy (as within the case of Navalny).
Novaya Gazeta, based in 1993 and headed by Dmitry Muratov, partly because of the assist of Mikhail Gorbachev, has at all times revealed very brave journalistic investigations and has by no means deviated from this editorial line in a society the place these days even relative freedom not exists and the place virtually all media not affiliated with the federal government are labelled “overseas brokers”. The Nobel Prize awarded to Muratov is a sort of safe-conduct that may enable his newspaper to face and defend its courageous journalists. As Muratov himself mentioned: “We are going to attempt to assist journalists who’re handled as overseas brokers, who’re persecuted, who’re expelled from the nation. The Nobel Prize is a posthumous reward for our [murdered] colleagues: Igor Domnikov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya, Stas Markelov, Anastasia Baburova, Natasha Estemirova — they’re those who acquired the Nobel Prize right this moment.”
Dmitry Muratov press convention on October 8 // Video of Novaya Gazeta, screenshot.
The author Boris Minayev expressed properly the essence of Muratov’s persona: “[He] helps many individuals. Sick, struggling, unjustly condemned folks. Dozens, tons of of them. He helps them not solely by way of the publications of Novaya Gazeta, but in addition personally, sparing no effort. Muratov might be one of many final to signify this precept, this advantage of the journalist — to make use of his place to do good deeds.” These are qualities that Anna Politkovskaya additionally possessed: she systematically helped the folks she met in her journalistic quest, as a result of for a lot of it was the final resort to get justice or, merely, to remain alive (thus, within the midst of the conflict, she delivered to Chechnya medicines that would not be discovered there).
Nonetheless, among the many opponents of Putin’s regime, the information of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muratov provoked some hostile reactions. Their fundamental reproach? The Norwegian committee was behaving cowardly in awarding the prize to not Alexei Navalny or Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, however to a extra consensual journalist, who definitely has tough relations with the authorities, however is cautious to not condemn the regime fully. This choice, within the opinion of some opponents, can be an indication of weak spot: it might be a matter of not offending the Putin’s regime an excessive amount of. Here’s what the political scientist Sergei Medvedev wrote: “With all due respect to Novaya Gazeta and Muratov, as they continue to be the final bastion of free journalism in Russia in its classical model (with a printed newspaper, good reporting, eclecticism of genres, and so forth.), this prize is the continuation of the shameful coverage of conciliation and compromise, of appeasement of the aggressor, that the West has chosen with regard to the Russian and Belarussian regimes.”
Documentary by Novaya Gazeta on the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya, screenshot.
I believe that Medvedev and another intellectuals camp on a maximalist and unfair place. The theme of this yr’s prize is journalism, freedom of speech; Muratov shares this prize with one other journalist, the Filipina Maria Ressa, for “their brave battle for freedom of expression threatened by repression, censorship, propaganda and disinformation”. Neither Tikhanovskaya nor Navalny are journalists: each are ethical authorities who’re waging a political battle. As the author and journalist Mikhail Chevelev put it, “to be indignant that Muratov acquired the prize as a substitute of Navalny and Tikhanovskaya is like being indignant within the final century that Pasternak acquired the Nobel Prize [for literature], whereas Shalamov was nonetheless alive.” And he concludes: “The political Nobel has returned to Russia. And it was awarded to a person who’s making an attempt to do all the things attainable. Within the present circumstances. This is good news.”
To conclude, I’ll quote the balanced opinion of the well-known journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, whom nobody can suspect of any complicity with the present Russian regime: “It is a magnificent choice by the Nobel Committee. The peace prize awarded to Dmitry Muratov — and thru him to Novaya Gazeta — is a transparent and highly effective assertion: the issue of human rights is a very powerful on the planet right this moment, and the destruction of freedom of expression by totalitarian nations is among the most severe crimes in opposition to these human rights, which causes huge harm to humanity. Dmitry Muratov has deserved this recognition, and Novaya Gazeta has turn out to be a logo of journalistic freedom, journalistic braveness and civic dignity not just for Russia, but in addition for the entire world. […] However it’s unimaginable to talk of this superb information with out a certain quantity of bitterness. As a result of, as we all know, there may be one other particular person in Russia who’s clearly worthy of this award — it’s Alexei Navalny. And one other group is worthy of receiving this prize — it’s Memorial. Nonetheless, the Nobel Committee works in such a means that the representatives of Russia won’t obtain one other Nobel Peace Prize for a very long time. It is a severe and apparent injustice. There isn’t a justice in our world: it’s like that.”
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