Russia's War on Words

[Commentary] Three years ago today Anna Politkovskaya, a courageous journalist who exposed appalling human rights offenses in Chechnya, was shot five times as she entered her Moscow apartment building. She was not the first Russian journalist to be slain for performing the invaluable function of bringing buried truths to light. Sadly, there have been, and will be, more murders. And we all pay the price. Americans were right to hope that the end of the Soviet system would bring rewards for us as well as for the people of Russia. But democracy only starts at the ballot box. Independent speech is crucial. We must do all we can to support journalists in this important work, including pressuring the Russian government to protect reporters and their freedom to speak. The murder of journalists affects more than just journalists; and the undermining of Russian democracy is a problem for more than just Russia.

(Appiah, a philosophy professor at Princeton University, is president of the board of trustees of the PEN American Center, the U.S. branch of the world's oldest international literary and human rights organization.)