BIOGRAPHY

Natalya Estemirova

Forty-year-old Natalya Estemirova is the daughter of a Russian-Chechen marriage and is a teacher and journalist in Grozny. She works regularly for the local newspapers 'Workman of Grozny' and 'Chechen Society'. A widow of a Chechen policeman, she lives with her 11 year-old daughter in the Chechen capital.

For many years, Natalya has devoted herself to the defence of human rights. Since the second Chechen war she has worked actively in the MEMORIAL human rights centre in Grozny. This organisation was founded in 1989 at the time of Perestroika by the dissident and political prisoner Andrej Sakharov, with the aim of defending the rights and fundamental freedoms of the Soviet citizens and to transmit information on the repressive system of power that was in place.

On a daily basis Natalya works to collect information that is useful and necessary in the pursuit of numerous cases of human rights violations in Chechnya: disappearances, kidnappings, executions, etc. To conduct her investigations she has to travel a lot – under extremely difficult and precarious conditions in a country devastated by bombs. She is very often the first one to arrive on the scene where violations have occurred. Not satisfied with gathering and forwarding information and reports to her organisation, she also gives support to the victims and their families by helping them to find medical and legal aid and psychological assistance.

A large part of the Chechen society sees Natalya as an emblematic moral figure in the non-violent Chechen resistance. Far from political passions, she is, above all, devoted to helping victims of violence. By her Russian-Chechen birth and daily struggles she potentially embodies an image of future reconciliation in the region.

Natalya has taken part in numerous international conferences including a conference organised in Antwerp in December 2003 on "the responsibility for the international community in the search for a peaceful regulation of the Russian-Chechen conflict", and a seminar "Your role as a citizen" on the teaching of peace organised under the project Pax Christi in St Petersburg in 2003.