Natalya Estemirova

Two years ago, as she was leaving home on a hot Wednesday morning in Grozny, several attackers forced Natalya Estemirova, the prominent journalist and human rights defender, into a car. A young witness--who later fled for fear of reprisal--recalled that Estemirova cried out she was being kidnapped and that a white Lada sedan then sped off. Estemirova's body was found a few hours later, ditched along a road near the village of Gazi-Yurt in neighboring Ingushetia. 

CPJ’s 2011 Impunity Index spotlights countries
where journalists are slain and killers go free

At the end of our recent mission to Moscow, our delegation squeezed in one final official meeting. Vyacheslav M. Lebedev, the chief justice of Russia's Supreme Court, had sent word only the night before that he would receive us. The meeting had been brokered by Aleksei Venediktov, the legendary founder of the radio station Ekho Moskvy, who told us that Lebedev had a keen interest in freedom of expression issues.

Moscow, September 30, 2010--Top Russian investigators have pledged to pursue 19 cases of murdered journalists presented to them by a delegation from the Committee to Protect Journalists, reopening several closed cases and pursuing new leads in a number of other probes.

New York, July 15, 2010—On the first anniversary of the brutal murder of prominent journalist and human rights defender Natalya Estemirova, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Russian authorities to thoroughly probe professional motives and aggressively pursue all suspects in the killing. Estemirova, left, who for 10 years documented the human toll of the conflict in Chechnya, was found shot to death in Ingushetia after being kidnapped from her Grozny home a year ago today. 

CPJ’s 2010 Impunity Index spotlights countries
where journalists are slain and killers go free

New York, April 20, 2010—Deadly, unpunished violence against the press has soared in the Philippines and Somalia, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail to solve the crimes. Impunity in journalist murders also rose significantly in Russia and Mexico, two countries with long records of entrenched, anti-press violence.

By Nina Ognianova

The day before, Natalya Estemirova had seen off two colleagues from Moscow. Yelena Milashina, a reporter with the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and Tanya Lokshina, an advocate with the international group Human Rights Watch, had traveled to Chechnya on separate assignments. Like many visiting journalists and human rights defenders, Milashina and Lokshina had stayed with Estemirova. Her Grozny apartment had become a headquarters for such visitors; Russian and international journalists often made it their first stop. Estemirova was their primary source, consultant, fixer, translator, protector.

Please join us for a free public event examining the killing of Natalya Estemirova, a journalist who exposed human rights crimes in Chechnya. Estemirova was kidnapped in the Chechen capital of Grozny in July 2009 and subsequently murdered.

The event, which features readings by Salman Rushdie and other prominent writers, will be held at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 29, at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

For more information please visit our events page.