Anna Politkowskaja

The assassination of Anna Politkowskaja is a tragedy and a scandal. And what happens afterwards is another scandal itself. Putin assures "everything [will] be done to clear up the murder" and states "She (Politkowskaja) had minimal influence on political life in Russia". This raises severe questions:

• Is it not normal in Russia that everything is done to find and punish killers?
• How can Putin make this promise? Can he influence the work of prosecution authorities?
• Is justice independent in Russia?
• Is the murder less outrageous because a less influencing journalist was killed?
• Or did Putin maybe state that her influence was minor because he disliked her criticism?

It becomes more and more apparent that Putin's notion of "democracy" differs largely from the one Europe and the US share. With all the efforts to mute criticism and to "reintegrate" former Warsaw Pakt countries into the Russian empire we should keep this difference in mind and remind Russia from time to time to try harder to find the way to democracy. Also, it seems a bad idea to make ourselves more dependend from Russia than necessary such as German soccer team Schalke 04...