Free Republic

Colleagues of Ms. Estemirova say her murder Wednesday is part of a pattern that shows cost of a Kremlin pact with Chechnyan President Ramzan Kadyrov. Moscow - The murder of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, kidnapped in Chechnya and shot execution-style in neighboring Ingushetia on Wednesday, has shocked the Kremlin and led President Dmitry Medvedev to pledge a full investigation. But leaders of Memorial, the Russian human rights organization that Ms. Estemirova worked with, and other human rights experts here say her death can be added to a fast-growing price tag for a Faustian pact. They say that pro-Moscow strongman...

I would argue that the Kremlin’s biggest failure in the Caucasus is one it doesn’t even recognize as a problem — namely the total inability to prosecute its own war crimes. Human Rights Watch has just condemned Russia’s policy of allowing its military forces to set fire to civilian homes in retaliation for acts of separatist violence, placing the lives of innocent children at risk. Only truly epic failure would cause a regime that claims U.N. Security Council membership to authorize polices this barbaric. Indeed, Russia has been repeatedly convicted for state-sponsored murder in the European Court for Human Rights,...

Abducted and murdered on Wednesday, hours after her organisation backed calls for Vladimir Putin to face trial over atrocities in Chechnya. Natalya Estemirova, who won numerous international awards for her work, was bundled into a car as she left her home in Grozny, the Chechen capital. Her body was later found by the side of a road in the neighbouring province of Ingushetia. She had been shot twice in the head at close range. Mrs Estemirova, a single mother in her early 40s, was the seventh opponent of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president, to have been murdered in the...

Four men abducted Estemirova, the leading Russian human rights worker in the troubled Caucasus region, as she left her home in Grozny at about 8.30 a.m. Wednesday, July 15. Members of her organization, Memorial, started a public outcry. In the midst of it, her body was found with two gun shots to the head, execution style. Her lifeless body was dumped in Ingushetia, a neighboring republic. Could this be the tipping point? In previous such murders — and there have been many — the finger-pointing has been somewhat wobbly. The regime of Ramzan Kadyrov, the 32-year-old leader who runs Chechnya...