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In October 2006, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who wrote extensively about the war in Chechnya, was assassinated. Her killers have still not been brought to justice. One of her colleagues, Oksana Chelysheva, spoke to British journalist Claire Doole writing for Geneva’s Human Rights Tribune about the state of the media in Putin’s Russia.

(The Human Rights Tribune is an independent and non-for-profit online newsjournal produced daily by the Media21/InfoSud news agency on the Human Rights Council and other related issues.) For further details on the HRT and the Media21 Global Journalism Network see: www.humanrights-geneva.info and www.media21geneva.org

Interview by Claire Doole/InfoSud - The Novaya Gazeta newspaper where Anna Politkovskaya worked is one of the few bastions of independent journalism in today’s Russia. But its journalists are under constant harassment and intimidation from the Russian authorities. Oksana Chelysheva, journalist and human rights defender, was in Geneva for the International Human Rights Film Festival for the showing of ’In the Name of Anna’ – a tribute to the outspoken critic of the Putin government.

The reporter who made the film ’In the Name of Anna", says in the film that she feels Anna Politkovskaya has been forgotten by the Russian people, do you agree?

She has not been forgotten by those who knew her when she was alive. She touched the lives of many people with her commitment to exposing human rights abuses, particularly in Chechnya. But there is very little information available to people in Russia. A human rights lawyer based in the Russian Far East whom I spoke to recently did not even know that she had been assassinated.

Is this a reflection of the government crackdown on the free media?

Yes. And they have almost succeeded in stamping out the free media. Even if they don’t shut down Novaya Gazeta, they have created an atmosphere of intimidation in which journalists are afraid and self-censor. Anna was very unique in that she became personally involved in her stories and tried to help the people. She was a humanitarian agent as well as a journalist.

Do you see any journalist picking up where Anna Politkovskaya left off?

I do see people trying to keep her legacy alive. It is a moral choice. Sometimes just making a phone call to someone to show your support can be risky but there are people who will do this. Apart from journalists, more and more people in Russia – musicians, artists, students are raising their voice. But there is very little independent media and we are constantly harassed.

What sort of harassment has your paper faced - the Nizhny Novogrod edition of Novaya Gazeta?

They removed all our computers on the anniversary of Anna’s death and we are under investigation on false charges of using counterfeit software. They trumped up similar charges for the edition in Samara, where journalists were very outspoken, and the paper has been shut down.

What about you personally?

Flyers carrying death threats with my name and address on them were distributed in Nizhny Novogrod in 2005 calling me a supporter of Chechen terrorists and a Russian traitor. We brought a criminal case but the prosecutors told us they could not foIlow it up. I am also the deputy director of the Society for Russian-Chechen friendship. It was banned in February 2007, but we have got round the problem by registering in Finland.

How does your paper cover the situation in Chechnya?

I used to go there frequently, but it is incredibly difficult to get accurate information about what is going on there. People don’t want to be quoted. They will publicly praise President Ramzan Kadyrov but tell us privately of atrocities. We don’t want to become part of his propaganda machine so in the Winter of 2007 we took the very difficult decision of not reporting on Chechnya as we had done in the past but using other means. For example we are publishing a legal study on the application of international criminal law on Chechnya.

What is your view of how the foreign media report on Putin’s Russia?

They waste too much time speculating about the power politics in the Kremlin and not enough telling the story of the impact of its policies on the people. Like Anna Politkovskaya they need to delve deeper and get the facts about the human rights abuses. They too self censor and say they are afraid of losing their accreditation. So perhaps the answer is for foreign journalists to come on short reporting trips.

Do you think we will ever know who killed Anna Politkovskaya?

It is a tricky question because it is very easy to establish who motivated the assassins. It is only a lack of will and under the current regime these names will be not released.

And you will never be able to publish what you know?

(laughs) Only if after writing this article I would flee the country and even then there would still be the issue of security.

The film ’In the Name of Anna’, a Franco-Russian productdion by Manon Loizeau and Laurent Stoop was shown at Geneva’s International Human Rights Film Festival on Thursday (March 13).

Claire Doole, a former BBC correspondent, is a British journalist, broadcaster and media trainer based in Geneva.