Dozens attend vigil for slain Russian rights activist; small crowd underscores challenges

Vigil held for slain Russian activist

MOSCOW — Several dozen people attended a somber vigil in Moscow on Thursday for slain human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, who was abducted last week outside her home in Chechnya and found dead later the same day.

Participants at the vigil — held eight days after her death, in accordance with a Russian Orthodox tradition — vowed not to forget Estemirova or forgive her killers. Some held flickering candles, others photographs of the 50-year-old gunshot victim.

One man held a sign blaming Chechnya’s President Ramzan Kadyrov and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for the slaying of Estemirova, who exposed alleged abuses by authorities under the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov.

“It just seemed shameful to stay home today,” said Ksenia, a Muscovite who did not give her last name. “How long can one sit quietly and pretend nothing is happening in one’s country?”

Organizers had not called for a large turnout, and Moscow authorities usually limit the size of public gatherings or bar them altogether. But the size of the crowd of up to 100 people underscored the uphill struggle for Russian activists who challenge a government that faces little public opposition.

Colleagues at Estemirova’s rights group, Memorial, blame Kadyrov for her death, saying he rules a region where abuses by authorities are an everyday occurrence and are committed with impunity. Many activists say Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev share the blame because they support Kadyrov, relying on his harsh rule to suppress separatist sentiment and keep militants from attacking deeper in Russia.

Under Kadyrov, Chechnya is more peaceful than during the two devastating separatist wars that erupted there over the past 15 years. But violence has increased in recent months there, and has skyrocketed in recent years in neighboring provinces in the volatile North Caucasus.

In Ingushetia — the province where Estemirova’s body was dumped by a road — two women on a sidewalk were fatally shot Thursday by gunmen in a passing car, the regional Interior Ministry said. Also Thursday, a makeshift bomb blast killed a police officer in Chechnya.

Meanwhile, in a reminder of the kind of abuses Estemirova investigated — often abductions that rights groups blame largely on security forces — Memorial on Thursday cast doubt on Chechen officials’ claims about the circumstances of the recent death of a suspected militant.

According to Memorial, a close Kadyrov ally who is also a member of Russia’s parliament said the suspect died in a gunbattle when a group of militants attacked police in the neighboring Ingushetia province on Tuesday. But the rights group said the suspect’s mother said her son had been taken away from their home on July 10 by three men who said they were police.

Associated Press writers Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Sergei Venyavsky in Rostov-on-Don contributed to this report.