- Title: RUSSIA: Slain human rights lawyer buried in Moscow.
- Date: 23rd January 2009
- Summary: PEOPLE PAYING RESPECTS GRIEVING RELATIVES MOURNER PAYING RESPECTS BABUROVA IN COFFIN WIDE OF CEREMONY FLOWERS PEOPLE QUEUING AND PAYING RESPECTS GRIEVING WOMEN
- Embargoed: 7th February 2009 12:00
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- Reuters ID: LVAA0FBB9D30XIKJGPVVOQ7P1Z1Q
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- Story Text: Slain human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov buried in Moscow; memorial service for young reporter Anastasia Barburova, gunned down with Markelov this week, takes place before her burial in Sevastopol.
Hundreds of Russians on Friday (January 23) mourned at the funeral of a human rights lawyer and a memorial for a young reporter, shot dead four days earlier in central Moscow.
A gunman shot Stanislav Markelov -- a lawyer who opposed the release from prison of a Russian army officer who raped and killed a Chechen woman in 2000 -- in the middle of the afternoon after he had given a press conference.
Journalist Anastasia Baburova from the Novaya Gazeta newspaper was a trainee reporter who had been at the news conference. She was walking with Markelov and was shot by the same gunman.
"This awful murder leaves us in no doubt - we live in a criminal society - among morally degenerate people. Our present state is not a police state - we had a police state in the Soviet Union - this is a weak state which cannot, even if it wanted to, protect its people," said Moscow lawyer Heinrich Resnik, Joining mourners at the Ostankinskoye cemetery in Moscow.
Relatives joined friends and colleagues of Baburova, at a memorial to the young reporter, held in Moscow. Her body will be transported to her home town Sevastopol, for burial.
Human rights groups say Russia has a poor record of catching the murderers of journalists and human rights workers and does not do enough to protect free speech.
A court is currently trying three men for involvement in the 2006 murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya but the murderer and the person who ordered the killing have not been caught. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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