Statement by YABLOKO Chairman
July 15, 2013

Four years ago, on July 15, 2009, Natalya Estemirova, human rights activist and journalist, member of the Grozny, Chechnya, branch of the Memorial human rights centre and member of the Public Observers Commission on the Republic of Chechnya, was abducted in Chechnya and murdered.

For many years Estemirova had been writing about abductions and murders of people in Chechnya, she made reports on unlawful actions by the Russian military and the Chechen law enforcement, fought against falsifications of criminal cases, investigated extrajudicial executions and abductions of people in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Natalya Estemirova detected mass-scale and systematic violations of human rights either by or at the negligence of the law enforcement and state bodies of the Chechen Republic and was not only criticized for this, but even received threats.

Estemirova openly stated that President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov was involved in abductions of people in Chechnya. Natalya Estemirova was kidnapped on July 15, 2009. On the same night her corpse was found by the Gazi-Yurt settlement, Ingushetia.

The Investigative Committee under Public Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation filed a criminal case on the murder in accordance with Articles 105 and 222 of the Criminal Code of the RF (murder and illegal turnover of weapons and ammunition). The investigation of the murder was taken under special control by then President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, however, the murder case has not been solved yet and those guilty of this crime
have not been punished.

The murder of Natalya Estemirova had broad resonance in the world. UN experts on human rights addressed the Russian government with a proposal to render assistance in the investigation of the murder, and The Guardian published a letter signed by over 100 renowned public figures from different countries of the world, Nobel Prize winners inclusive, with a demand to find the killers of Natalya Estemirova and stop murders of journalists in Russia.

The YABLOKO party states that the murder of Natalya Estemirova was directly connected with her professional activities on protection of human rights in Russia. The fact that so much time has passed since the murder and those who committed this crime have not been found makes us doubt the intensive work in investigation of this crime and the interest of the authorities in solving of the crime.

On the fourth anniversary of the murder of Natalya Estemirova we demand from the law enforcement to render to the society the results of the investigation of this terrible crime.

Sergei Mitrokhin,
YABLOKO Chair

See also:

The murder of Natalya Estemirova