Police clamped tight security on Moscow yesterday for protests remembering murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya and ahead of a Kremlin birthday party for President Vladimir Putin, whose policies she criticized. Up to 2 000 people, many holding carnations and pictures of the reporter, attended a somber rally in Pushkin Square to mark the anniversary of her death. ?We should fight for freedom?, the editor of Politkovskaya?s newspaper Dmitry Muratov told the crowd, which also included members of the ?Other Russia? dissident group. ?We should keep Anna in our hearts and we should not follow the instructions of Putin?. Local media said 2 500 extra police had been drafted in.

Colleagues had gathered earlier for a private graveside remembrance of the reporter, a mother of two who was gunned down in the lift of her apartment building as she returned home from shopping. No one has yet been convicted of her murder.

State-run television reported the anniversary briefly, showing pictures of an empty street outside Politkovskaya?s apartment building with a few red flowers in a bucket. Frustrated at the poor turnout, ex-world chess champion Garry Kasparov, now an opposition politician, told Reuters that Russians were ?too passive? and didn?t understand the significance of Politkovskaya?s murder. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to Putin last week questioning aspects of the official investigation into Politkovskaya?s death and urging a ?thorough, transparent and unbiased? probe.

Conor SWEENEY