Press release

Russia: Chechen Human Rights Advocate Murdered

July 16, 2009

ARTICLE 19 is shocked and deeply saddened by the killing on 15 July 2009 of
Natalia Estemirova, a Chechen human rights activist and representative of the
Memorial Human Rights Centre in the Chechen capital Grozny.

Estemirova was abducted outside her home earlier today; according to the reports of Russian officials, her body was later found near Nazran, the capital of neighbouring Ingushetia, showing signs of a violent death.

Estemirova had worked at the Memorial Human Rights Centre since 2000 on a
number of sensitive cases documenting human rights abuses in Chechnya.

The International Federation of Journalists is the global voice of journalists. It was formed in 1926 and today is the world’s largest organisation of journalists, working across all sectors and representing more than 600,000 news staff in unions and associations of journalists from 120 countries.

The Ethical Journalism Initiative is a global campaign of programmes and activities to support and strengthen quality in media. It was adopted by the World Congress of the IFJ in Moscow in 2007 and was formally launched in 2008.

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