On the Assassination of Galina Starovoitova

The following letter was sent to the Speaker of the Russian Duma on November 28, 1998:

We wish to express our shock and sadness at the news of the assassination of Galina Starovoitova. We knew her as a courageous defender of human rights, a politician of integrity, a respected and popular teacher. When her life was cut short by a brutal killing, her work for Russian democracy was far from completed. We urge the executive powers of Russia to take all possible measures to ensure an immediate and thorough investigation of this political murder. We can only hope that her death will serve as a wake-up call to all those who yearn for Russia to join the family of nations committed to nonviolent social and political change.

Shlomo Avineri
Ivo Banac
Stanislaw Baranczak
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Robert Bernstein
Martin Butora
Elzbieta Czyzewska
Krzystof Czyzewski
Marek Edelman
Deborah Eisenberg
Jonathan F. Fanton
Lisa Foa
Milos Forman
Jamey Gambrell
Konstanty Gebert
Irena Grudzinska Gross
Seamus Heaney
Stephen Holmes
Elizabeth Holtzman
Karen Kennerly
Vesna Kesic
Janos Kis
Komar & Melamid
Jacek Kuron
Xiarong Li
Sonja Licht
Iskra Likomanova
Lev Loseff
Fatos Lubonja
Norman Mailer
Norman Manea
Edward Mendelson
Adam Michnik
Mircea Mihaies
Czeslaw Milosz
Jonathan Mirsky
Cynthia Ozick
Margo Picken
David Remnick
Mstislav Rostropovich
Kenneth Roth
Jeffrey Sachs
Michael Scammell
Jonathan Schell
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Viktoria Schweitzer
Wallace Shawn
Charles Simic
Aleksander Smolar
Susan Sontag
Fritz Stern
Mark Strand
Rose Styron
Vladimir Tismaneanu
Tatyana Tolstaya
Barbara Torunczyk
Jan Urban
Peter Vail
Tomas Venclova
Derek Walcott
Lawrence Weschler
Elie Wiesel
Leon Wieseltier
Igor Yefimov, Adam Zagajewski, American Friends Service Committee and 135 others