Murder of Russian human rights lawyer on Marting Luther King Jr. Day

As I was going through the news this morning, between stories about Martin Luther King Jr., the going-ons of the Obama family and the preparations being made for the inauguration, I found this interesting story about the murder of Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer who had been prosecuting human rights abuses in Russia.

This story is interesting in the sense that it's both horrifying and timely. Right now, the United States is not only celebrating the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but also welcoming our first African American president. Both of these men represent equal opportunity and human rights in the country, and we've certainly come a long way in the last 50 years to realizing these ideals.

However, Russia, with its heavy history of unequal rights and corrupt and failing governments, obviously still has a long trek ahead of itself. It saddens me to read about the murder of a man who worked within the law to punish human rights abuses, despite the law itself being part of a larger, crooked system. Just as MLK's death inspired people in the United States to work toward something better, perhaps Markelov's death can have the same effect on the Russian and Chechen people. But if history can be trusted as a telling factor, it could be 50 or more years before the people see results.

Markelov represented the parents of Elza Kungayeva, who had been "raped and murdered in a drunken rampage by Russian troops." The killing became a symbol of human rights abuses in Chechnya. Here, the mother and father share pictures of their daughter.


People hold portraits of missing relatives during a protest against the early release of former Russian Colonel Yuri Budanov in Grozny December 29, 2008. About 200 people protested in Chechnya on Monday over the early release of the Russian officer jailed for murder, in a rare public show of dissent by the region's pro-Kremlin leadership. The protesters in Grozny were voicing anger at a decision to grant an early release to Colonel Budanov, convicted in 2000 of murdering 17-year-old Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva during a tour of duty in Chechnya.

[Photos from Reuters]
See also: Telegraph.co.uk article on the murder of Markelov
Human Rights Watch on Chechnya
Amnesty International 2008 Report on the Russian Federation
"Chechnya - human rights under attack"