Moscow memorial plaque to slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya torn down for fifth time in a week
A memorial plaque to Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist assassinated in 2006 who reported extensively on Russian atrocities in Chechnya, has been torn down five times in the past week. Here’s what we know.
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A memorial plaque honoring Anna Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta journalist assassinated in 2006, is first smashed. The incident is reported by former municipal deputy Alexander Zamyatin, who notes that it took place on the eve of the anniversary of the killings of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta journalist Anastasia Baburova. Both were murdered by neo-Nazis in Moscow on January 19, 2009.
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The night after the original plaque was destroyed, a post appears in a closed Telegram channel linked to the Russian neo-Nazi group National Socialism/White Power (NS/WP). The post claims that “certain enterprising individuals” destroyed the plaque, describing the act as a “tribute” from NS/WP to its “glorious predecessors” from the neo-Nazi group BORN (the Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists).
Members of Civic Initiative install a temporary replacement, but it’s destroyed the same day.
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A Moscow court rules that the plaque on Politkovskaya’s building was smashed by a man named Alexander Filippov and fine him 1,000 rubles ($13) for petty hooliganism. Filippov claimes the plaque broke accidentally while he was clearing away withered flowers beneath it. Novaya Gazeta says it believes that “not one person, but a group of individuals with clearly neo-Nazi views” was behind this and similar acts.
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Another temporary plaque installed by activists is torn down. Flowers that Moscow residents had been bringing to the building over the previous several days also vanish.
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Another temporary plaque — this one made of paper and foam board — was put up on the building’s facade on the evening of January 23. By the next day, it disappears as well.
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Yet another temporary plaque installed by activists lasts less than a day. On January 25, it too is removed, according to the outlet Sotavision. It was mounted much higher on the facade, well above human reach, but that proves ineffective.