| Today our friend, journalist and editor of
the Sovetskaya Kalmykia Today paper Larisa Yudina would have
turned 65.
She was killed on June 7, 1998. The perpetrators and the
organiser of this murder – S.Vaskin who had had several criminal
records and served as Legal Advisor to the President of Kalmykia
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, were found and convicted.
However, the person who ordered the murder has not been named
yet, in spite of the fact that the investigation knows his
name.
While the investigation does not come to an end, we can not
rule out that ex President of Kalmykia who has recently become
the head of FIDE was involved in the murder.
We believe that the main reason why the investigation has
not yet been finished lies in the lack of political will of
the top officials of the state.
While the situation remains so, the criminals and corrupt
officials in power all over the country know that they can
use any methods against their opponents up to a murder, and
remain unpunished.
The impunity of the murderers of Larissa Yudina served as
an indirect cause for all the subsequent murders [of journalists
and human rights activists] - Yuri Shchekochikhin, Anna Politkovskaya,
Farid Babayev, Stanislav Markelov and many other.
This impunity throws a direct challenge to the civil society
and the state which has been claiming to be called “modern”.
We appeal to the President of Russia calling him to do his
outmost so that to finally name and punish the person who
ordered the murder of Larissa Yudina.
Sergei Mitrokhin,
Chair of the YABLOKO party
See also:
The Murder
of Larissa Yudina
Human
Rights
Freedom
of Speech
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