Press Release, July 16, 2010

An action in memory of renowned human rights activist Natalya Estemirova kidnapped and murdered a year ago in took place in Nevsky Prospect, St.Petersburg, on July 16, 2010.

Activists from the YABLOKO party, Memorial and The House of Peace and Non-Violence dressed in T-shirts with a photograph of Natalya marched along the main street of the city Nevsky prospect and distributed leaflets about the killed human rights activist among passers-by. The latter asked questions about Natalya and about the news of the investigation.

Natalya Estemirova was born in a Russian-Chechen family in the Saratov region. She graduated from the historical faculty of the University of Grozny, Chechnya. Until 1998 she worked as a history teacher in one of the schools in Grozny. Then she engaged into journalism specializing in human rights. In the beginning of the Second Chechen War she worked in Grozny, in 2000 she joined the Memorial human rights society. Estemirova was a member of the commission protecting prisoners’ rights, fought against falsification of criminal cases, visited prisons, fought against torchures and investigated kidnappings of people and non-judicial executions in Chechnya and Northern Caucasus.

She was also a correspondent of the Novaya Gazeta paper. Estemirova received the Right Livelihood Award at a ceremony in the Swedish parliament building in 2004. Along with Sergey Kovalyov, chairman of Memorial, she was awarded the Robert Schuman Medal by the Group of the European People’s Party in 2005. In October 2007, she was awarded the first Anna Politkovskaya Award by Reach All Women in War (RAW), a human rights organization supporting women human rights defenders in war and conflict. Estemirova worked with investigating journalist Anna Politkovskaya and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, both of whom were also murdered, in 2006 and 2009.

Natalya has a daughter.

The source: spb.yabloko.ru