H.E. Dmitri Medvedev
President
Russian Federation
Fax: (011.7.495) 206.6277/ 5173
H.E. Vladimir Putin
Prime Minister
Russian Federation
Fax: (011.7.495) 206.4622, 205.4219
Your Excellencies:
We are dismayed and appalled by yet another brutal murder of a Russian civil rights activist and former journalist, Natalia Estemirova. Abducted yesterday outside her home in Grozny, the Chechen capital, she was found fatally shot a few hours later near a highway in the neighboring Republic of Ingushetia.
Ms. Estemirova was the single most important human rights defender in Chechnya, where she had been personally threatened by the Chechen president, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, whom she had accused of being responsible for kidnappings and other human rights abuses in recent years. She was a close friend and colleague of Anna Politkovskaya, the crusading Novaya Gazeta journalist, whose murder in 2006 still goes unsolved, and was the first recipient of the Anna Politkovskaya award.
After a meeting with Kadyrov in March, 2008, Ms. Estemirova went abroad for several months. Colleagues at the human rights group, Memorial, where she had worked since 1999, tried to persuade her to remain in exile, but she returned to Chechnya and courageously continued to document abuses. She was leaving home for work early yesterday morning when three men pushed her into a white car. Her body was found in the afternoon, 50 miles away.
The Overseas Press Club of America, an independent organization that has defended press freedom around the world for seventy years, calls on your government to launch a thorough, transparent investigation of this latest outrage and its possible links to previous cases, including the Politkovskaya killing and the murder last January of the human rights lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, with whom Ms. Estemirova often worked, on a Moscow street in broad daylight.
As we have often written in previous letters to Your Excellencies, the endless record of murders and assaults on journalists in Russia casts shame on your country. It makes a mockery of your repeated promises to protect journalists in their vital work. It is long past time for urgent action to make good on those promises.
Thank you for your attention. We would appreciate a reply.
Respectfully yours,
Larry Martz
Kevin McDermott
Co-chairmen – Freedom of the Press Committee
cc:
H.E. Sergey V. Lavrov
Foreign Minister
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Moscow 121200
Russian Federation
Fax: (011.7.495) 244.3448
Ambassador Vitaly Churkin
Permanent Representative
Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations
136 East 67th Street
New York, NY 10021
Fax: (212) 628.0252
Aleksey K. Simonov
President
Glasnost Defense Foundation
4 Zubovskiy Boulevard, # 432
Moscow 119021
Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 637.4947
Andrew McChesney
Editor-in-Chief
The Moscow Times
Ul. Polkovaya, 3, build. 1
Moscow 127018
Russia
E-mail: mcchesney@imedia.ru
H.E. Yuriy V. Ushakov
Ambassador of Russia to the U.S.A.
Embassy of the Russian Federation
2650 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Fax: (202) 298.5735
Dmitri Peskov
First Deputy Spokesman of the President of the Russian Federation
c/o Embassy of the Russian Federation
2650 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20007
Fax: (202) 298.5735
H.E. William J. Burns
U.S. Ambassador to Russia
Embassy of the United Statesof America
8 Bolshoy Devyatinskiy
Pereulok, Moscow 121099
Russia
Fax: (011.7.495) 728.5090
Andrey V. Vasilyev
Editor-in-Chief
Kommersant Daily
4 Vrubelya Street
Moscow, Russia
E-mail: kommersant@kommersant.ru