They say deaths happen in threes, so perhaps it was a given that Natalia Estemirova would join Anna Politkovskaya and Stanislav Markelov on the list of prominent murdered Chechen dissidents.

Abducted Wednesday morning outside her home in Grozny by armed gunmen, she was found a few hours later, alongside a highway, dead of gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

Estemirova knew the dangers of her work, as she discussed in a prescient April 2008 interview with the New York Times.

“Armed people come, in uniforms, and put them in cars,” she said, describing a typical abduction. “People understand they are the security forces. These people come back beaten, but are quiet and never speak out.

“We know people disappeared,” she said. “We know most of them were killed. And we know we need to look for them with a shovel.“

Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov, who has the full support of the Kremlin, has disavowed any responsibility (of course) and promises to investigate fully, though given that the murders of Politkovskaya and Markelov are still unsolved, I wouldn’t start holding my breath.

Despite the heroic efforts of people such as Estemirova, Politkovskaya, and Markelov, Chechnya sits firmly on that sad list of countries with horrific government-sanctioned human rights violations the world mostly shrugs off (Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Sudan).

Estemirova, who leaves behind a 15-year-old daughter, was reportedly terrified last year during a threatening meeting with Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov after she had the audacity to protest a new law forcing women to wear head scarves.

That we as a society tolerate countries demanding that half their citizens shroud themselves in public is an endless source of outrage. Imagine what the world would do if a country ruled that all the men had to walk around with bags over their heads. Or all the Christians.

In related news, the Department of Homeland Security (such a ridiculous, xenophobic sounding name) announced yesterday that they want to change Bush administration policy and begin offering asylum to women who are severely battered and/or sexually abused by their spouses. But it’s not exactly an open door. The women must be able to prove that they are considered property by their abusers and that they have no recourse in their own countries. Oh, and potential victims of the oh-so-charming custom of genital mutilation won’t make the cut, so to speak.

It’s hard to be thankful for such small blessings.

10 replies on “Where Not to Go on Your Summer Vacation”

  1. In what sense do we “tolerate” it? Is the act of not invading Chechnya (and thus setting off WWIII pretty much instantly) a tacit endorsement of all its practices?

  4. I agree with the principle that we shouldn’t stand by when terrible things happen in other countries. But I also submit that it’s terribly difficult for us to react in any meaningful fashion: we’re hardly in a position to call out other countries human rights violations, what with Gitmo and Abu Gharib so recent in the world’s mind. And there’s the awful realpolitik that we have to play (how can we support the Iranian dissidents when 1. getting support from America is a quick ticket to have the opposition discredited as “pawns of the imperialists” and 2. we still have our own self interest to look after – if the hardliners win, we still have to be in a position to negotiate with them on nuclear weapons, lest the Israelis take care of it for us.) I don’t know the answer, exactly, but in my experience, every positive development -liberalization, improved freedom of press and assembly, ect- has come from people of a country demanding it from their government, not a foreign government demanding (or invading it) on behalf of a people.

  6. 1. Politkovskaya and Markelov were not “Chechen dissidents”. Both were Russian. Politkovskaya was a journalist who investigated rights abuses in Chechnya. Markelov was a human rights lawyer and journalist.
    2. Chechnya is not a “country”. It is a republic of the Russian Federation.

  9. i admire the passion on display here.

    however, GOD said women had to wear the hijab. and the burkha. and the chador. and be genitally mutilated.

    so, end of discussion.

  10. We should just start putting notices in various Chechen newspapers: “Don’t like religious oppression at home? Come to America! We’ll make you work hard in dead-end jobs for shit money and virtually no healthcare, but you don’t have to wear a head scarf! (Except if you work in food service.)”

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