Alcee Hastings

“ She was once quoted as saying, "journalists have a duty to report on the subject that matters, just as singers have to sing and doctors have to heal."
Despite her critical attitude toward her country's political leadership, Anna Politkovskaya possessed a deep warmth and love for its people. She cared for Russia, and wanted nothing else for the country and its people than to see it become a true democracy free from corruption and fear. Her death, said former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ". . . is a savage crime against a professional and serious journalist and a courageous woman. ”

“ It is Chechen civilians and Russian conscript soldiers who are the centers of concern here. Politkovskaya's most withering scorn is reserved for the political and military classes that initiated this war, together with its profiteers, opportunists, and contract soldiers straight from Russia's prisons. ”

“ In 2004, she made an attempt to travel to Beslan during the murderous school siege, in that village but fell ill with food poisoning on the way, an event which some took as a deliberate poison attempt by her enemies to kill her. ”