July 20, 2009
Memorial's Closure Leaves Chechens With Nowhere To Turn
by Claire Bigg
In January 2002, Zelimkhan Yezhiyev's son left his village in Chechnya on a trip to the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.
He was never seen again.
So
Yezhiyev did what many Chechens do in that situation -- he traveled to
the republican capital, Grozny, and knocked on the door of Memorial,
Russia's leading human rights group.
That's where he first met
Natalya Estemirova, one of the region's boldest rights campaigners, who
became Yezhiyev's main ally in the search for his son.
She
helped him file inquiries with the police and take his case to court,
and she offered much-needed advice and moral support. His son, 22 at
the time of his disappearance, is still missing.
Yezhiyev again
sought Estemirova's help when armed men began carrying out raids on his
village and subjecting his family to abuse.
With Estemirova's
brutal slaying last week, it became clear that Yezhiyev, and hundreds
like him, had lost the last person they could turn to for help.
"We
could call her day or night, and she would come and help us -- she was
a golden person, she always helped me and all those who turned to her
for help," Yezhiyev says. "I feel as though I've lost a loved one; she
was like a sister to me. My family, my wife, and my daughter all cried
when I told them she had died."
Forced Closure
Estemirova was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds on July 15, hours after being abducted outside her home in Grozny.
Colleagues
say her killing is retaliation for her tireless work investigating
executions, kidnappings, and other abuses in Chechnya. They lay blame
for the killing on Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's iron-fisted,
Kremlin-backed leader, whose militia has been accused of numerous
abuses against civilians.
But Chechens are mourning more than
the loss of Estemirova. Her employer, Memorial, announced on July 19
that it was suspending its work in Grozny due to concern for the safety
of other workers there.
Estemirova is the second
Memorial worker to have been slain in Chechnya. In April 2006, Bulat
Chilayev, a driver for the group's medical program, was abducted and
killed.
Memorial says it will remain closed until at least the end of August.
Nurdi
Nukhadjiyev, Chechnya's human rights ombudsman -- who critics say
merely acts at Kadyrov's behest -- played down the closure of Memorial,
saying there were other rights groups in Chechnya to carry on the work.
But
Memorial was certainly the largest and boldest of all, the first stop
for all journalists reporting on rights abuses in Chechnya.
'Nowhere To Turn'For some, Estemirova's murder and the closure of Memorial remove the last layer of protection for ordinary Chechens.
Shakhman
Akbulatov, the head of Memorial's Grozny office, says a string of
dismayed citizens have been visiting him since the announcement:
"People
come and say that if Memorial shuts down, they won't have anywhere or
anyone to turn to for real support and help," Akbulatov says.
But Akbulatov says that even if Memorial opens again, it has lost its most valuable asset: Estemirova.
"We
lost a lot with her -- her invaluable experience, her contacts, and her
skills. This will deal a blow to Memorial's work," Akbulatov says. "She
is, to put it mildly, irreplaceable. We will miss her as a colleague
and simply as a person."
Climate Of ImpunityEstemirova's death has drawn outrage outside Russia, too.
Amnesty
International condemned her killing as "a consequence of the impunity
that has been allowed to persist by the Russian and Chechen
authorities."
Human Rights Watch said it was "open season on
anyone trying to highlight the appalling human rights abuses in
Chechnya" and called on Russian authorities to bring Estemirova's
killer or killers to justice.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
has vowed to track down and punish Estemirova's killers. But he has
dismissed as "primitive" allegations that Kadyrov or other Russian
officials had a hand in her murder.
Kadyrov, for his part, has said he plans to file a slander lawsuit against Memorial's Oleg Orlov, who says Kadyrov is to blame.
Yelena
Milasheva, a correspondent for the independent newspaper "Novaya
gazeta" who knew Estemirova well, says both the Kremlin and Kadyrov had
reason to dislike the slain Memorial worker.
"Kadyrov -- and, I
think, federal authorities too -- have been seeking to get Memorial out
of Chechnya, because Memorial has irked them throughout the wars and
irks them now by tainting the image of stability," Milasheva said. "If
Memorial shuts down, it will be a catastrophe."
Human Rights
Watch says Estemirova had been documenting "extremely sensitive" cases
of human rights abuses when she was murdered.
She had recently
contributed to a Human Rights Watch report accusing Chechen authorities
of burning more than 20 houses in punitive attacks against the families
of alleged rebels.
On the day of her murder, Russian human
rights activists in Moscow unveiled a lengthy report which Estemirova
had helped research. The report documents atrocities committed by all
sides during the two Chechen wars and demands that Putin and other
top-ranking officials be held to account for war crimes.
RFE/RL's Russian Service contributed to this report.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2009 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Chechens_Left_With_Nowhere_To_Turn/1781140.html
