Human rights defenders demand to find killers of Natalia Estemirova

Today, on the seventh anniversary of the murder of human rights defender Natalia Estemirova, ten people have held solo pickets in front of the building of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) in Moscow. The picketers demanded to find the guilty persons and bring them to justice. Passersby interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" said they had never heard of Natalia Estemirova; however, the people have added they realize how hard the activities of human rights defenders in Chechnya may be.

On July 15, 2009, Natalia Estemirova, a staff member of the Chechen Representative Office of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", was kidnapped in Grozny, brought to Ingushetia and killed. Her killers have not yet been found.

The number of the picketers included members of the "Amnesty International" (AI), the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial". Within an hour, they replaced each other on the picket, and each picketer was approached by an ICRF agent, who checked the protestors' documents.

The protest action was called by the need to remind the Russian authorities about the unsolved crime.

Stanislav Dmitrievsky, a member of the organization "Natalia Estemirova Documentation Centre", registered in Norway, believes that the murder is not being investigated, since its traces lead to the top-ranking officials from the Chechen government.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.