Yesterday, in especially spineless and despicable fashion, a friend of mine was murdered. She was Natasha Estemirova, 50, the head of the Chechnya office of the human rights organisation Memorial, and one of the bravest people in Russia. For many years – and despite repeated death threats – Estemirova struggled to expose the brutality of state security forces whose attempts to root out separatist rebels in Chechnya were accompanied by wholesale terror against its civilian population.
Around 8.30am yesterday, witnesses saw several unidentified men push Estemirova into a white Lada outside her home in Grozny: she managed to cry out that she was being kidnapped. Eight hours later her body was found dumped by a road in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia with gunshot wounds to her head and chest. Her assassination – for there can be little doubt she was mercilessly silenced – is an outrage that must call into question Moscow's entire strategy in the North Caucasus region.
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