Shockingly, Politkovskayas murder was not an isolated incident, but rather, a disturbing addition to an ongoing purging of journalists critical of the Putin and Medvedev administrations. The most recent in the purge was Magomed Yevloyev, owner of ingushetiay.ru, a website critical of Ingushetiya President and close friend to Putin, Murat Zyazikov. Immediately upon arriving in Ingushetiyas capital city of Magas, Yevloyev was forced into a police car and hours later dumped on the side of the road with a bullet in his head. The Russian government responded to this issue, stating that the unlikely Yevloyev had reached for a policemans gun during the drive and the gun went off, shooting Yevloyev in the head.
Worse than the actual killings themselves is the lack of thorough investigation of these murders, a suspicious indication of state involvement. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) sites at least twelve murders of Russian oppositional journalists, not including Yevloyev, all of which remain unsolved and without competent investigation. Included in these killings is the particularly chilling murder of editor-in-chief of the investigatory Tolyattinskoye Obezreniye, Aleksei Sidorov. Reminiscent of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, Sidorov was stabbed in the chest with an ice pick outside of his apartment.
In fact, so atrocious are the human rights violations against vocal dissidents of the Russian Federation, that the CPJ has ranked Russia the ninth worst country in regard to freedom of the press. According to CPJs statistics (based on a ratio of unsolved murders of journalists per 1 million inhabitants), Russia is more repressive than turbulent nations such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, and is ranked only slightly more safe than countries such as Nepal or Afghanistan.
Not only does the Russian government repress and oppress dissidents, but it also pays a pretty penny to keep the mainstream media staffed with pro-governmental supporters who report the Putin-friendly version of the news. One of the effects seen of this was Putins approval rating during his presidency. As late as July 2007, he enjoyed a cushy and popular 80% stamp of approval. Undoubtedly, his photo shoots in the woods with his shirt off, holding an AK-47, or that of him in his Judo outfit, or that of him yet again appearing shirtless on fishing trips, have won him much popularity among the people. Ladies swoon at his beefcake-like photos and there is even a cult-following of the young in Russia who nearly deify him: Pop songs are written about him, propaganda praises his name, and many Russians feel that he has revamped national pride and identity, similar to that which existed during Imperial Russia. However, such strong feelings of national pride caused by Putin and the inflated high-approval ratings are a result of the aforementioned controlled media. During the Second Chechen War, when Russias military bombed purely civilian targets, carried out extrajudicial executions of prisoners and civilians, and was even accused of using tactics ranging from rape, abduction and torture, the average Russian citizen heard little of Russias atrocities. Only the victories of the Russian army were reported alongside the shocking and horrifying deeds of the Chechen rebels tactics, including the Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004, where rebels took approximately 1,200 people captive in a local grade school.
Likewise, the use of what Barack Obama in the September presidential debate deemed as and actions of the Russian military in Georgia were not widely publicized in the Russian media. Even Politkovskayas idea of the internet, where information is freely available seems no longer truly free: Putin continues to extend his long arm online this time by paying governmental supporters to release propaganda in his favor. For instance, European Digital Rights (EDR), an organization devoted to protecting the freedom of information in Europe, observed one such incident out of many. An anti-Kremlin march was being organized by bloggers protesting the Russian government. Within hours of finding out about the protest, pro-Putin bloggers swamped the internet with information about a pro-Kremlin march, so much so that they crowded out all oppositional blogs online. Included with Putins new task of controlling a new form of media, is his idea of starting a separate Russian internet, isolated from that of the rest of the global community. Under lightly veiled concerns about financial hacking and the spread of child pornography, this new internet would greatly increase the ease at which it could be controlled, which is precisely what Putin intends to do.
With the ongoing suppression and murders of oppositional journalists adjoined with Putins dominance of the old media and seemingly inevitable domination of the new, one can only be reminded of the Soviet Unions iron grip on the media and the duping deceit of its citizens. The exception is that the Russian Federation now considers itself a democracy. However, progress cannot truly be made and democracy cannot truly exist where the media is controlled by the government, facts are distorted or omitted, and opposition is crushed.
Below is a link to the CPJs list of murdered Russian Journalists:
http://cpj.org/Briefings/2005/russia_murders/russia_murders.

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