MOSCOW (AFP) — Hundreds of Russian opposition activists rallied in Moscow on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya amid international calls for the journalist's killers to be brought to justice.
"A year ago, Politkovskaya was killed in a despicable way. She died defending the human dignity of all citizens," Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister turned opposition leader, told the crowd.
"Her name has become the highest moral authority," he said as hundreds of Russian security officers stood by in the rain, surrounding the square in central Moscow where the rally was held without incident.
Politkovskaya, a mother of two and a rare independent voice in Russian journalism, was gunned down on October 7 last year outside her home in central Moscow. Her murder remains unsolved.
Another opposition leader, former chess champion Garry Kasparov, put up a memorial plaque referring to Politkovskaya's "cowardly" murder on the wall of her house and laid a bouquet of pink-and-yellow roses by her door.
Her family visited her grave in a cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow.
Elsewhere in the Russian capital, rights groups put up an exhibition of photos from Chechnya, the main subject of Politkovskaya's work, in a small park near the Kremlin.
"I think it's the best way to remember her, to remember her work, to show that her work has not died," said Tatyana Lokshina from the Demos human rights group, one of the organisers of the photo exhibit.
"Journalists' work in our country is hard and very dangerous," she said.
In Saint Petersburg, about 350 people gathered to place flowers, candles and portraits of the journalist in front of a monument to victims of political repression.
"We are heading at high speed towards totalitarianism. Everything she (Politkovskaya) wrote about has become reality," said local lawmaker Natalia Evdokimova.
Politkovskaya was a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin and made her name with stinging reports about atrocities committed against civilians during Russia's war in Chechnya.
She received many media awards in her lifetime and has been honoured posthumously by several international press freedom organisations, as well as the United Nations.
Russian investigators have announced a series of arrests for her killing, including of an officer with the FSB secret service and a former Chechen politician.
But Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based international media watchdog, said last week that recent developments in the investigation "fuelled doubts about the will of the authorities to really solve this murder."
Politkovskaya's former editor at Novaya Gazeta has alleged that a Russian secret service officer played a part in her murder and that officials were now deliberately undermining the inquiry.
Novaya Gazeta re-activated Politkovskaya's work phone number for the anniversary and planned to publish dozens of messages of support left on her answering machine in its Monday edition.
More than 60 international celebrities and dignitaries signed a petition published in Saturday's edition of The Times in London calling on Russia to bring Politkovskaya's murderers to justice.
Signatories included Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel peace laureate, British playwright Harold Pinter, US actress Susan Sarandon and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy.
The anniversary of Politkovskaya's killing coincides with Putin's 55th birthday and a large rally in the president's honour was held by a pro-Kremlin youth group in the centre of the Russian capital.
Immediately after the killing, Putin had dismissed her role as "insignificant".
Since Politkovskaya's death, Russian and international campaigners have been deeply critical of the authorities for failing to protect journalists, pointing to a series of unsolved murders of reporters.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Russia as the world's third most dangerous country for the media after Iraq and Algeria, with 47 work-related killings of journalists since 1992.
