We were only 30 on
Friday: representatives of human rights organizations, a few journalists and
academics, a couple of anonymous "concerned citizens." Standing on the Place de
la Liberté (Freedom Square) in Brussels two blocks from the Parliament, a few
meters away from a police team that had asked us to limit ourselves to a
"static demonstration," we held pictures of Natalya
Estemirova and roses. A few journalists--the Belgian news agency, Reuters
Television, a community TV station--were filming the scene. Scores of people
were walking by on their way from lunch back to office work.
"It is Friday, in the
middle of the holiday season," reasoned one of the demonstrators. "The members
of the European Parliament are in
The contrast could not
have been wider between this tiny group of demonstrators and the deluge of
articles and statements condemning Natalya's killing and praising her courage.
In the mainstream media, on Facebook, in e-mail groups, Natalya's murder had
been prominently reported and commented on. Editorials celebrated her
commitment and denounced the culture of impunity in
Natalya Estemirova was
well-known as a human rights defender. She had been in
Natalya wrote
regularly for the
Natalya brought to her human rights investigations the best of a journalist's commitment to dig out and check the uncomfortable facts, to be rigorously impartial and to act as a watchdog on arbitrary power.
Listening to the
speakers deploring the loss of a combative woman daring to speak up, I was
thinking of a famous sentence pronounced by late Newsday star investigative journalist Bob Greene when Arizona Republic reporter Don Bolles was
murdered in
The best tribute to Natalya's work will be the dedication to find who killed her and who ordered the killing but also to make sure that the stories that she investigated and that Chechen and Russian authorities want to suppress will be uncovered and disseminated around the world.
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