The following news is accompanied by the ominous sense of déjà vu:
Natalia Estemirova was bundled into a van and abducted as she left her home in Chechnya on Wednesday morning, a colleague said. Her body was found in Ingushetia.
Ms Estemirova had been investigating human rights abuses in Chechnya for the independent Memorial group.
Ms Estemirova, who was 50 according to Russian prosecutors, had worked in the past with the activists Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in 2006, and Stanislav Markelov, who was killed in January this year.
In 2007 she was awarded the inaugural Anna Politkovskaya Prize, and had also received awards from the Swedish and European parliaments, Memorial said. [Source]
The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, has since expressed “outrage” at the murder, and a “top-level investigation” is being arranged.
After the debacle that was the investigation, arrest and trial of Anna Politkovskaya’s killers, one can be forgiven for retaining a modicum of skepticism.
Western society have just received yet another disturbing reminder how ruthless dictators both deal with their critics and show blatant disregard for how we perceive them!!. Ms Estemirova’s murder is a callous reminder of the perils faced by some journalists and Human Rights activists working in conflict zones around the world. By bringing hard hitting facts to the public arena they irrefutably place themselves in the sniper scope of their enemies. Tragically, this despicable crime against both Human Rights and Press Freedom is becoming an increasingly all too common occurrence across the globe. Nevertheless, many journalists remain undaunted in the face of such adversity and continue to run this gauntlet of reprisal in the pursuit of bringing crimes perpetrated against innocents to world attention.
The perpetrators of this grotesque act of murder against the world of human rights must be brought to justice. By allowing these murders to go unpunished is setting a dangerous precedent for other dictatorships to follow!