INTERNATIONAL PEN WOMEN'S DAY- MARCH 8, 2003 Impunity and Freedom of Expression

"I am tired of being afraid."

That is what Larissa Yudina told Alexei Siminov of the press freedom watchdog Glasnost Defense Foundation, when he asked her, Aren't you afraid?

Recalling that conversation in an interview shortly after her murder, Siminov noted the remarkable character of the comment. Most of us, he said, are not yet tired of being afraid.

Larissa Yudina's fearless work as a journalist and as Editor-in-Chief of the opposition daily Sovietskaya Kalmykia in the Russian Republic of Kalmykia won her the respect and admiration of colleagues, but ultimately cost her her life. Yudina was kidnapped and murdered in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia, on June 8, 1998. The previous evening, an unknown person claiming to be a representative of the Agency for Co-Development, a government office reporting to President of the Republic Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, had made an appointment with the journalist. He indicated he wished to give her documents implicating Ilyumzhinov in the misappropriation of funds. When she did not return, her husband alerted police, who subsequently discovered her body in a dam. She had suffered several stab wounds and her skull had been fractured.

Authorities had often threatened Sovietskaya Kalmykia, the only opposition newspaper in Kalmykia. Since 1993, Yudina had personally received numerous threats connected to the paper's reporting on President Ilyumzhinov's wealth and authoritarianism and on corrupt business practices by regional officials. The coverage brought her newspaper into constant conflict with the President, who is also an influential businessman.

The murder of Yudina, 53, prompted public protests in Elista, as people demanded a federal investigation into her murder. Legal action did follow when prosecutor-general of Russia Yuri Skuratov took over the investigation from local authorities, and three unidentified suspects, described as closely connected to the republic's leaders, were arrested for involvement in the crime. The official investigation ended with the conviction of two of its material authors.

Following the convictions, Valeri Ostanin, Deputy of the State Duma who headed Yabloko's independent investigation of the crime, told reporters, "We think that it is too early to close the case. The organizers and people who ordered this murder have escaped responsibility.

"We know that there are many blank spots in this case and many sinister circumstances -one of the most important witnesses was killed in a car crash in very strange circumstances. He was going to testify and explain who had ordered the crime and why," Ostanin added.

Yudina's valor did not go unnoticed by the Russian government. In September 2000, President Vladimir Putin posthumously granted her the Order of Courage. "The Order of Courage is a deserving reward for Larissa Yudina. It requires courage to be an honest journalist in the present Russia," Deputy Head of the Yabloko faction, Sergei Ivanenko, commented after the decision."

This is especially true for journalists working in Kalmykia. Eve Conant of National Public Radio in Moscow was the last person to interview Yudina, just a few weeks before her murder. Yudina told her, "Democratic freedoms and human rights are violated [in Kalmykia] more than anywhere in Russia. We have laws that contradict the Russian constitution. I live in Russia, but I am not sure that Russian laws protect me here."

Photo above courtesy of www.eng.yabloko.ru