1. Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya was a Russian investigative journalist who reported on political and social events in Russia, in particular, the Second Chechen War.
41 Facts About Anna Politkovskaya
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Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned while flying from Moscow via Rostov-on-Don to help resolve the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, and had to turn back, requiring careful medical treatment in Moscow to restore her health.
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Anna Politkovskaya Stepanovna Mazepa was born in New York City in 1958, the daughter of Ukrainian Soviet diplomats at the United Nations, Stepan Fedorovich Mazepa from Kostobobriv, Ukraine, and Raisa Aleksandrovna nee Novikova from Kerch in Crimea.
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Anna Politkovskaya's father was ethnically Ukrainian and had attended a Ukrainian-language school in Chernihiv before the 1941 Nazi invasion of the USSR.
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Anna Politkovskaya met her mother at a Russian-language night school in Kerch after the war while serving in the fleet.
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Anna Politkovskaya's father was appointed to the Ukrainian delegation at the United Nations during the Khrushchev era.
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Anna Politkovskaya became a founding member of the Special Committee against Apartheid in 1962, and served as its secretary as late as 1974.
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Anna Politkovskaya's parents bought an apartment in central Moscow in 1962 and Politkovskaya mostly grew up there.
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Anna Politkovskaya attended a music school and trained figure skating; according to her mother, she was noted for her frequent use of the local Krupskaya Library.
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Anna Politkovskaya graduated from Moscow State University's school of journalism in 1980 with a thesis about the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva.
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Anna Politkovskaya married fellow student Alexander Politkovsky in 1978; by 1981 they had two children, Ilya and Vera.
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Apart from her childhood years, Anna Politkovskaya spent no more than a few weeks outside Russia at any one time, even when her life came under threat.
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Anna Politkovskaya was a US citizen and had a US passport, although she never relinquished her Russian citizenship.
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Anna Politkovskaya was privy to developments in the media sphere through her husband, "Russia's number one television journalist" from 1987 onwards, and shared his political interests.
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Anna Politkovskaya was a columnist for the socio-political newspaper Megapolis-Express, founded in 1990, before it turned into a tabloid serving fake news in September 1994.
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Anna Politkovskaya's career took off with the decline of her husband's influence following the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis.
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Anna Politkovskaya published several award-winning books about Chechnya, life in Russia, and Russia under Vladimir Putin, including Putin's Russia.
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Anna Politkovskaya talked to officials, the military and the police and frequently visited hospitals and refugee camps in Chechnya and in neighboring Ingushetia to interview those injured and uprooted by the renewed fighting.
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In numerous articles critical of the war in Chechnya and the pro-Russian regime there, Anna Politkovskaya described alleged abuses committed by Russian military forces, Chechen rebels, and the Russian-backed administration led by Akhmad Kadyrov and his son Ramzan Kadyrov.
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Anna Politkovskaya chronicled human rights abuses and policy failures elsewhere in the North Caucasus.
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Anna Politkovskaya was closely involved in attempts to negotiate the release of hostages in the Moscow theatre hostage crisis of 2002.
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In Moscow, Anna Politkovskaya was not invited to press-conferences or gatherings that Kremlin officials might attend, in case the organizers were suspected of harboring sympathies toward her.
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Anna Politkovskaya claimed that the Kremlin tried to block her access to information and discredit her:.
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Anna Politkovskaya herself did not deny being afraid, but felt responsible and concerned for her informants.
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Early in 2001, Anna Politkovskaya was detained by military officials in the southern mountain village of Khattuni.
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Anna Politkovskaya was investigating complaints from 90 Chechen families about "punitive raids" by federal forces.
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Anna Politkovskaya interviewed a Chechen grandmother from the village of Tovzeni, Rosita, who endured 12 days of beatings, electric shocks, and confinement in a pit.
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Anna Politkovskaya had reportedly been poisoned, with some accusing the former Soviet secret police poison facility.
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In 2001, Anna Politkovskaya fled to Vienna, following e-mail threats that a police officer whom she had accused of atrocities against civilians in Chechnya was looking to take revenge.
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In 2004, Anna Politkovskaya had a conversation with Ramzan Kadyrov, then Prime Minister of Chechnya.
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Anna Politkovskaya was found dead in the lift, in her block of apartments in central Moscow on 7 October 2006, Putin's birthday.
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Anna Politkovskaya had been shot twice in the chest, once in the shoulder, and once in the head at close range.
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Anna Politkovskaya was buried near her father, who had died shortly before her.
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In May 2007, a large posthumous collection of Anna Politkovskaya's articles, entitled With Good Reason, was published by Novaya Gazeta and launched at the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow.
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Anna Politkovskaya said Makhmudov's uncle Lom-Ali Gaitukayev, who was serving a 12-year jail sentence for the attempted murder of a Ukrainian businessman, worked for the FSB.
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Two years ago, in its Resolution 1535, the Assembly called on the Russian Parliament closely to monitor the progress in the criminal investigations regarding the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and hold the authorities accountable for any failures to investigate or prosecute.
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On 5 August 2009, the prosecution service's objection to the acquittals in the Anna Politkovskaya trial was upheld by the Supreme Court, and a new trial was ordered.
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In May 2014, five men were convicted of murdering Anna Politkovskaya, including three defendants who had been acquitted in a previous trial.
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On 7 October 2016, Novaya gazeta released a video clip of its editors, correspondents, photographers and technical and administrative staff holding text-boards giving details of the case and stating, repeatedly, "The sponsor of Anna Politkovskaya's murder has not been found".
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Anna Politkovskaya was brave, she was bold, and she was beautiful.
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The award recognizes "a woman human rights defender from a conflict zone in the world who, like Anna Politkovskaya, stands up for the victims of this conflict, often at great personal risk".