A rally in memory of slain human rights activist Natalya
Estemirova took place in Novopuskinskii Skver in Moscow.
The participants held Natalya Estemirova portraits and placards
demanding to find and punish those guilty of her murder.
The participants of the rally lit candles and put flowers
by Natalya’s portrait.
Renown human rights activists, journalists and public figures
participated in the rally. YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin
also came to pay tribute to the memory of Natalya.
In its statement the YABLOKO party called the murder of
Natalya Estemirova a “direct consequence of governmental
policies in the Northern Caucasus and in Russia in general”.
“These policies are reduced to imitation instead of real
work and active resentment of those who in contrary to the
policies of the authorities have had the courage to open
the truth. Such imitation is seen in the statements and
television broadcasts on normalisation of the situation
in Chechnya”, runs the document.
YABLOKO members expressed their readiness to do everything
they can “to make the authorities to open the truth on the
murders of human rights activists and to punish those who
ordered, organized and implemented these crimes”. YABLOKO
is certain that “we can qualitatively change the situation
only by means of fundamentally changing the Russian state
and its attitude to its people”.
Natalya Estemirova, member of the Memorial Society and
winner of many prizes for protection of human rights, was
kidnapped by her house in Grozni. She was seized by several
people, bundled into a white Zhiguli car and driven off
in an unknown direction. In the evening her body was discovered
with two bullet wounds in Nazran, Ingushetia.
