Today's headlines speak of the bleak but sadly not unfamiliar news of another human rights activist being murdered in the North Caucasus.  On Sunday, businessman and rights defender Maksharip Aushev was killed when 60 rounds of bullets were sprayed into his car along a highway in the province of Kabardino-Balkaria.  Aushev is the third human rights activist to be murdered in the trouble spot in a little over three months, following the murder of Memorial's stalwart Natalya Estemirova in July and childrens' charity officer Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband in August. The Guardian adumbrates Aushev's trajectory into the sphere of human rights advocacy, prompted by the experience of his own son and nephew being kidnapped, followed by ...

Yevgeny Zhovtis - the political prisoner of Kazakhstan

Grigory Pasko, journalist

During the time of my brief sojourn in Almaty, I met with many people - journalists, jurists, human rights advocates - and asked of them: what do they think of the Yevgeny Zhovtis case? One thing became clear and distinct from all our talks: this human rights activist is now widely considered as a new political prisoner of modern-day Kazakhstan - a state which although masquerades its commitment to democratic principles, regularly violates the rights of her people and flouts its own laws through its deeds.

Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда.Read parts one, two and ...

Bob has written a few posts here and there about the Kazakhstani human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis, who was recently imprisoned following a rapid show trial.  The ordeal is catching the attention of some serious regional players, many of whom see it as the definitive proof that the country is not prepared to take on the chairmanship of the OSCE next year (if this privilege is somehow revoked, it would represent one giant leap backward for the country's reputation). Today's Economist reports, "Starting this spring, an unprecedented wave of arrests of government and state-company officials and bankers on various charges--mostly corruption or embezzlement--has caused alarm. A number of people, fearing they ...

TODAY: NATO head upbeat on relations with Russia; Medvedev looks to imams for help with Caucasus Islamic insurgents; suggests a TV channel.  Russia on the defensive regarding WW2; 70th anniversary of its start to prove a diplomatic minefield?  St Petersburg heritage status in jeopardy with Gazprom tower looming.The New York Times reports on how the period of relative tranquility in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan has ended with a surge in violence.  Reuters relays Russian claims that an al-Qaeda agent has been killed in Dagestan.  The republic's recovering President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov has warned Medvedev that Islamic insurgency has 'permeated all facets of life in society'.   The Russian president has urged Muslim clerics to help ...

TODAY: Human rights activist and husband murdered; Medvedev has idea for military abroad; Georgia suggests the Kremlin seeking justification for incursion.  Ukraine-Russia ties on the rocks; reports to be submitted about bribery.    President Medvedev has submitted a bill to the State Duma that would allow for the deployment of Russian troops almost anywhere overseas.  A Georgian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said that the new law is an attempt 'to place the aggression perpetrated against Georgia last year within a legal framework'.  The Ministry also says that Russia has not honored the terms of the cease-fire agreement and called Medvedev's thanking of Sarkozy, who helped to broker the peace deal, 'a cynical move'.  The Washington Post reports ...

If you are a human rights activist in Russia, you are likely risking your life, could have criminal investigations opened against you, get successfully sued for exposing abuses, or even get arrested attending a funeral of one of your fallen colleagues.  Well, it could be worse.  It looks like in Nursultan Nazarbayev's Kazakhstan, they'll throw some poor man in front of your car in order to charge you with vehicular homicide.  This story sounds extremely fishy, especially coming on the heels of Zhovtis efforts raising international awareness of Nazarbayev's draconian new media laws and commenting on other human rights issues in the Central Asian state.  From RFE/RL:Yevgeny Zhovtis, director of the nongovernmental organization Human Rights Bureau, said that he was driving a car that struck a man and killed him late on July 27. ...

Just saw this one at EurActiv.  It might be a problem when a government is asked twice in just one week to show that it is interested in investigating the murders of two separate human rights advocates.

The president of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek called on 23 July for Russian authorities to bring the killers of human rights activist Andrei Kulagin to justice. 

Kulagin disappeared two months ago and officials were quoted by Russian media on Wednesday as saying his body had been found in a quarry on 10 July. He led the local branch of Spravedlivost (Justice), a rights organisation in the Karelia, around 1,000 km (620 miles) north of Moscow. 

Buzek said those responsible for the murder must be brought to justice. 

"I would like to [...] insist upon an impartial and credible investigation conducted by the Russian authorities," Buzek said in a statement. 

"The international community cannot allow

...

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker and a frequent journalist and author on Russia, has published a new piece about the murder of journalist Natalia Estemirova.  At the end of the article, Remnick posted an audio recording of his on-stage interview with her at the Politkovskaya memorial service held by PEN.

A couple of years ago, at a memorial service for the great Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya put together by PEN, I had the honor of interviewing onstage one of Politkovskaya's friends, the human-rights activist Natalia Estemirova. Politkovskaya, who was murdered at her home in Moscow in 2006 (as Michael Specter and Keith Gessen have written in The New Yorker), did her best and bravest work in Chechnya for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, one of the few remaining outlets with the audacity to continue publishing the truth about

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TODAY: Rights activist Natalya Estemirova found dead hours after abduction; the US and EU both express regret and urge protection for rights advocates; Putin silent.  Russia's superannuated military struggling to keep up? US soldiers engage in exercises with Georgian in show of solidarity.Human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, Memorial's representative to Chechyna and winner of the first annual Anna Politkovskaya Award in 2007 for her work as a human rights defender, was abducted in Grozny upon leaving her home.  Her body was found some hours later off a highway.  The slain activist was 'a central source of information on abuses in Chechnya', according to the New York Times, and her recent work had focused upon kidnappings that had ...

I was just about to write a short blog post on a Reuters story about the kidnapping of Natalia Estemirova, a human rights activist who worked with Memorial in Grozny, when I received the updated news that she had been found dead.  Only hours ago, Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch in Moscow was warning the press on this kidnapping, and making a direct request to the authorities to guarantee her safety:  "There is no shred of doubt that she was targeted due to her professional activity. (...) We know she was abducted and HRW is demanding the Kremlin and Kadyrov that she be returned home safely."Instead, our worst fears were confirmed, as yet another outrageous and vile murder of a human ...