Natalya Estemirova, the Chechen representative of Grozny branch of Russian “Memorial” human rights group was kidnapped and murdered today.

A prominent Chechen human rights activist who investigated abductions, killings and other rights abuses in Chechnya was found killed today (July 15,2009), hours after being kidnapped in Grozny, the Chechen capital. Today morning around 8.30 am with Moscow time, she had grabbed and forcibly put into a white VAZ-2107 car by four men at a close area of her house. She could manage to shout “she is abducting” but the car moved very fast to an unknown destination. During the day her fate wouldn’t know but Oleg Orlov, the chairman of Memorial said that her body was found in somewhere, very close to Nazran city, the capital of Ingushetia. Estemirova’s corpse was discovered with two close-range bullet wounds.

Yet it is unknown who kidnapped and murdered her, but everybody say that bloody Putin regime or his hitman Kadirov is the behind of assasination, because her investigatives about the human rights violations in Chechnya and her speeches about the current situation in Chechnya as “it’s getting worse after the canceling of so-called anti-terrorism operations”.

Estemirova, was a single Chechen mother in her early 40s, had collected evidence of human rights abuses in Chechnya since the start of the second Russian occupation there in 1999. She was the representative of Grozny branch office of “Memorial”. She also worked with the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Russia’s war against separatists in the Caucasus. She was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building in 2006. Estemirova also worked with Stanislav Markelov, a prominent lawyer and opponent of rights abuses in Chechnya, who was shot and killed on a Moscow street in January. She got and nominated to many international awards. In 2004, Swedish Parlament gave her “Rights Exist” award; in 2005 she got “Robert Schuman” award by European Parlament; and in 2007,  RAW in War organization which is based in England gave her to first “Anna Politkovskaya” award.