Memorial and Natalya Estemirova

Continuing our exploration of Adam Hochschild's The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin, you can learn more about the human rights organization Memorial at their website and virtual museum which notably includes artwork made by imprisoned artists.

Bringing Memorial's story up to the present day, we must call attention to Memorial activist Natalya Estemirova who was assasinated this summer while working to document human rights abuses in Chechnya. Amnesty USA covers the case here. David Remnick has a last interview on the New Yorker site. The Voices of Genocide series from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum offers a podcast interview with one of Estemirova's Memorial colleagues. Most important of all, you can take action here.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has released a new report just this week Anatomy of Injustice: The Unsolved Killings of Journalists in Russia featuring Natalya Estemirova's friend Anna Politkovskaya (Putin's Russia) among others. Here's a teaser for the report:


Anatomy of Injustice from Dana Chivvis on Vimeo.

The New York Times takes a look at the report here. Note that there has been some good news on the Politkovskaya case earlier this month (AIUSA press release, NYT).