Two more critics of Vladimir Putin take bullets in the head

[Onkel Neal]

ANOTHER RUSSIAN fighting for human rights and the rule of law has been murdered in Vladimir Putin's Moscow. Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who defended Chechens brutalized by Russian troops and journalists who wrote about the abuses, was shot in the head yesterday by a masked man carrying a silencer-equipped pistol. An opposition journalist who tried to intervene, Anastasia Baburova, was also fatally shot in the head. This occurred in broad daylight, on a busy street in central Moscow less than half a mile from the Kremlin. It was another demonstration that assassinations are a dominating feature of political life under Mr. Putin's regime.

The larger story here is of serial murders of Mr. Putin's opponents, at home and abroad. Ms. Baburova, 25, is at least the 15th journalist to be slain since Mr. Putin took power. No one has been held accountable in any of the cases -- including that of Anna Politkovskaya, a former client of Mr. Markelov who also was murdered execution-style in broad daylight, on Mr. Putin's birthday in 2006. In London, dissident former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned; so was Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who survived. Karina Moskalenko, another opposition lawyer who has represented Ms. Politkovkaya's family, fell ill from mercury poisoning in Strasbourg, France, in October, just before a hearing in the case. Last week in Vienna, a Chechen dissident who had received political asylum was murdered on the street -- shot twice in the head.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011902604.html

Wow, Russia, you really are making progress...

You know, I'm shocked not to find more outrage here in GT about this. I mean, George Bush is gone, so I would think his courageous, outspoken critics would turn their sights on some other act of atrocity. I mean, there is still some bad stuff in the world with Bush gone, isn't there?

Well, yeah, I mean, ya know, dude, we have to keep fighting the eveel Amerikuns, you know.We don't have time to fight cuddly Mr Putin, and Chavez, Kim Il jung, or Akmehadexahdez at the same time....those guys don't merit our attention...