On July 15, 2009, Natalia Estemirova’s body was found in Ingushetia with bullet wounds to the head and chest.
She had been working diligently and tirelessly for Memorial, Russia’s most prominent human rights organization.
In Chechnya (a place Anna Politkovskaya called a small corner of hell), she specialized in cases of kidnapping, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings involving militants and others, cases that should have been investigated by the authorities, had the latter not been complicit…
In Chechnya, however, the security apparatus of Ramzan Kadyrov, the restive republic’s president, is widely suspected of being behind these egregious human rights abuses, part of the brutal campaign to crush the rebellion led by Islamic militants, and instigated by Kadirov’s patron, Vladimir Putin.
One week before her murder, she had issued a report on an execution involving the Kurchaloi district police that took place in the Chechen village of Akhkinchu-Borzoi.
Was her murder the police’s reply?
Perhaps, for she did have many enemies in Chechnya, particularly among those bent on prosecuting their vicious war against the militants and their relatives on their own terms, contemptuous of both justice and the rule of law…
Two years later, no one has been arrested by the authorities for the man accused by the latter of having committed the deed, Alkhazur Bashayev, an Islamic militant, was shot dead by Russian security forces in November 2009.
Hence, as far as the Russian authorities are concerned, the case is closed because it has been solved…The murderer having been identified (and killed, conveniently precluding the possibility of a trial), the Chechen authorities are thus absolved of any responsibility in the murder, and, consequently, in any other suspicious killing in the republic...
Since Natalia Estemirova did not issue any reports involving Mr. Bashayev, Russian human rights activists never took the official version seriously.
As a result, human rights organizations launched their own investigation into the murder in the hope that a credible police inquiry will one day take place…
The report, entitled Two Years After the Murder of Natalia Estemirova: Investigation on the Wrong Track, sponsored by Memorial, the Russian investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta, (which published Politkovskaya’s reports on Chechnya) and the International Federation of Human Rights based in Paris, was presented last Thursday by Oleg Orlov, Memorial’s chairman.
According to the report, the examination of DNA samples found on Natalia Estemirova’s body did not match those of Mr. Bashayev or his brother, Anzor Bashayev, also charged in the case.
The latter, currently living in France, provided a DNA sample to Memorial.
The French authorities granted political asylum to Anzor Bashayev, and rebuffed Russian requests to extradite him.
There is no serious proof to really consider the version in which Alkhazur Bashayev is the main suspect in the killing of Natalia Estemirova, Orlov declared.
Human rights groups have accused the Russian authorities of fabricating a case in order to avoid exploring other possibilities, including the following embarrassing and explosive scenario: that officers in Chechnya’s security apparatus, at the behest of the republic’s president, eliminated a dangerous human rights activist that had been relentlessly exposing their criminal activities.
In this particular case it seems Special Forces tried to build a disguise version to take the investigation away from the real murderers, the report claims.
There were very strong circumstances around Estemirova’s murder that suggested that there could have been some official involvement. You know, the threats that had been made against Estemirova and others like her, the threats against Memorial, the timing of the threat, the kinds of crimes that Estemirova had been investigating-all of that pointed to a very strong official interest in seeing some kind of harm done to her, Rachel Denber, of Human Rights Watch, told RFE/RL.
Svetlana Gannushkina, a Memorial activist, presented a copy of the report to Russian President Dimitri Medvedev on July 5...He has yet to issue any comment…
The journalist Tom Parfitt once wrote that Natalia Estemirova was one of the bravest people in Russia. But, she was much more than that, for she knew whom she was confronting, yet plodded on nevertheless…
Significantly, other determined and brave human rights activists inspired by her example yet not deterred by her fate have been pursuing the same cause, justice and the rule of law.
In November 2009, four months after Natalia was killed, a group of Russian lawyers founded the Joint Mobile Group of the Russian Human Rights Organizations in Chechnya (Mobile Group).
The organization sends activists to Chechnya in order to investigate human rights abuses, record testimony and collect evidence.
Two months after its creation, the Mobile Group was asked to investigate the disappearance of Islam Umarpashaev, who was kidnapped from his home in Chechnya, on December 11, 2009, and held at the headquarters of the Chechen Special Task police Force (OMON). There, he claims he was abused and tortured by police officers.
The Mobile Group lodged an official complaint and seized the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. The latter then requested that the Russian government investigate the matter.
Three months after the Mobile Group’s intervention in the case, Umarpashaev was released because, according to one of his abductors, his father went all the way to the European Court and created problems.
The Mobile Group is now demanding that the Russian authorities launch an official and credible investigation into the matter and hold all those who may have broken the law accountable.
In the meantime, and for their own safety, the Umarpashaev family has had to flee Chechnya.
The Caucasian republic, therefore, remains a very dangerous place, particularly for those brazen enough to demand justice.
We have been working in Chechnya for many years. These days, people there are simply paralyzed by fear, not daring to lodge complaints against law enforcement and security officials under de facto control of the Chechnya leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. By persevering in his quest for justice, Islam Umarpashaev is displaying immense courage, Tanya Lokshina, Russia researcher at Human Rights Watch, declared.
Needless to say, Mobile Group activists have been threatened and harassed by the Chechen police.
For their efforts, the Mobile Group was awarded the 2011 Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
The work of the Joint Mobile Group is an inspirational example of how committed individuals, despite all the pressures that are brought to bear on them, can hold the line in defense of justice, truth and the rule of law. It is the denial of access to justice that enables tyrants to prevail. This is why the work of human rights defenders like the Joint Mobile Group is so important, declared former Irish President Mary Robinson, now President of the Mary Robinson Foundation, upon presenting the award to Igor Kalyapin, founder and head of the organization, at Dublin City Hall.
Two years after Estemirova’s murder, there are more questions than answers about the circumstances surrounding her killing. The Russian authorities need to deliver justice in Estemirova’s case to demonstrate their sincerity about protecting human rights in Chechnya and throughout the Caucasus, Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said.
As the Estemirova case has shown (the same, alas can be said concerning the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, killed on October 7, 2006, Putin’s birthday…) the land of Putin, Medvedev and Kadyrov is incapable of delivering justice, and is not the least interested in doing so.
As such, we need not worry concerning their sincerity about protecting human rights.
They are much more interested in power than in justice…
Yet, as the bold and fearless Russian human rights community has demonstrated, the authorities can be compelled to release victims of human rights abuses if there is sufficient pressure exerted from both within and without Russia.
The Russians do seem loath to attract the attention of the European Court of Human Rights and suffer potentially ignominious legal defeats there, and, more generally, in the court of world opinion…
Therefore, it is vital that we all apply pressure on the Russian authorities and compel them to protect human rights activists in the Caucasus, and the Chechen people from violence and abuse…
Amnesty International has launched a campaign demanding justice for Natalia Estemirova.
Let us support this effort (you can sign the petition here).
Do we not owe at least this much to Natalia Estemirova?
(the photograph above is by Vladimir Rodionov RIA/Novosti)
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