Russian human rights activist murdered

More troubling news from Russia. It reminds me of one summer (winter) when I was doing an internship in Argentina for the US embassy there. I was having dinner with an Argentine woman who worked with us. It was 1988 or so, just a few years after the military dictatorship fell. She lost several friends to the death squads who would arrest and summarily execute human and civil rights advocates, and any other political agitators they didn’t agree with. Some were reportedly drugged and dropped from helicopters into the ocean to drown. I remember that night, at dinner, going into a heated rant about the military dictatorship and the killings, and the Argentine woman suddenly stopped, looked at me, and said: “You know, if you were Argentine, they’d have killed you.” Never forget how fortunate we are to live in this country, regardless of its shortfalls.

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