A prominent Russian human rights campaigner who worked to expose government-backed kidnappings in Chechnya is believed to have been murdered after being kidnapped herself there on Wednesday, Russian investigators said. The investigators said they believed they had located the body of the woman, Natalia Estemirova, an employee with the Russian human rights group Memorial, according to a statement by the prosecutor general's investigative wing. The body, found in neighboring Ingushetia, had gunshots to the head and chest. Ms. Estemirova's passport was found at the scene. [...] Ms. Estemirova worked for years helping families uncover details about kidnapped relatives. She was the recipient of several international awards, and in 2007 was the first to win the Anna Politkovskaya Award, named for the Russian investigative journalist, who also worked to uncover abuses in Chechnya before she was shot to death in October 2006.
The investigators said they believed they had located the body of the woman, Natalia Estemirova, an employee with the Russian human rights group Memorial, according to a statement by the prosecutor general's investigative wing. The body, found in neighboring Ingushetia, had gunshots to the head and chest. Ms. Estemirova's passport was found at the scene.
[...]
Ms. Estemirova worked for years helping families uncover details about kidnapped relatives. She was the recipient of several international awards, and in 2007 was the first to win the Anna Politkovskaya Award, named for the Russian investigative journalist, who also worked to uncover abuses in Chechnya before she was shot to death in October 2006.
The qualification "government-backed" is not good journalism. Is it policy as this would imply? Or are certain government officials involved? Kidnapping is a highly profitable business for local organized crime whether in Sardinia or Iraq. Mafias always have tentacles in government. This does not mean that a government has a policy of kidnapping, all the more so the winger comments on Putin over at Booman.
One thing I never hear people mention is that the people who automatically blame "the Kremlin" or VVP himself when a journalist is murdered in a part of the world where crime and murder are rife are the same people who will mew and moan and cry foul that people like Khodorkovsky do not get a fair trial.
Either you support due process or do not. I do.
I'm getting really effing sick of both parties in this story. I think both these martyred activist-journalists and the Kremlin are given too much import and reach in these stories. I find it implausible that one story out of Novaya Gazetta is going to bring down the whole Russian Government, or that people trying to run a county as vast and with so many problems as Russia have nothing better to do than hunt down relatively unknown journalists for game.
And the ironic thing is that it is real journalism that suffers as result. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
SRB: Another Casualty of the "Russian Abu Ghraib"
Vilhelm Konnander with the reactions of Russian bloggers. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
