Attacks on the Press - Committee to Protect Journalists

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIAa n a ly s i s 157Who is left to report on human rights abuses in Chechnya? The murderof one reporter has a resounding global impact. It also illustrates thegrave problem of impunity.s u m m a r i e sArmenia 165Azerbaijan 167Belarus 171Croatia 174Georgia 176Kazakhstan 179Kyrgyzstan 182Russia 186Ukraine 190Uzbekistan 193why a killing in chechnyais an international issueb y n i n a o g n i a n o vaThe day before, natalya estemirova had seen off twocolleagues from Moscow. Yelena Milashina, a reporter with the newspaperNovaya Gazeta, and Tanya Lokshina, an advocate with the internationalgroup Human Rights Watch, had traveled to Chechnya on separate assignments.Like many visiting journalists and human rights defenders, Milashinaand Lokshina had stayed with Estemirova. Her Grozny apartment had becomea headquarters for such visitors; Russian and international journalists oftenmade it their first stop. Estemirova was their primary source, consultant, fixer,translator, protector.Estemirova was to travel to Moscow shortly, Milashina recalled later, so onJuly 14, 2009, the friends said goodbye with the words: “I’ll see you soon.”The next morning, as Estemirova was leaving for work, four men forced herinto a white Lada sedan. She cried out that she was being kidnapped, but the carsped off. Her body, three bullets to the chest, two to the head, was found eighthours later, ditched along a road near the village of Gazi-Yurt in neighboring Ingushetia.Witnesses saw the kidnappers, according to news reports, but they weretoo afraid to speak. Despite ostensibly tight security along the Chechnya-Ingushetiaborder, the kidnappers passed through guarded checkpoints undisturbed.snapshots 196Albania, Greece, Kosovo, Moldova, Slovenia, United Kingdomp h o t o sSection break: AP/Sergey Ponomarev—A mourner holds a portrait ofslain journalist Natalya Estemirova during a vigil in Moscow. Analysis: RIANovosti—Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov confers with Russian PrimeMinister Vladimir Putin in Grozny.156