In Copenhagen this month, Human Rights Watch presented its proposal for institutional reform to monitor host countries' compliance with international human rights norms. We also believe that the IOC should make host city contracts public.
Natalia Estemirova was Chechnya's great champion of human rights until her kidnap and murder last month. On the 40th day after her death, her friend Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch commemorates a uniquely courageous and selfless woman.
The leading Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova knew better than anyone the risks entailed in her work in the turbulent North Caucasus. She has died at the age of 50 after being abducted from outside her home in Grozny, capital of Chechnya, last Wednesday: she was found shot dead later the same day near the village of Gazi-Yurt in neighbouring Ingushetia.
MOSCOW -- They found the body of my friend Natalya Estemirova on Wednesday. She had been abducted by unidentified men that morning in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, where she lived and worked as a human rights defender. She was seen being bundled into a sedan and was heard calling out, "I'm being kidnapped!" Calls to her cellphone went unanswered all day; she missed several important meetings, including one at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and she failed to pick up her daughter as scheduled at 2:30 p.m.
Since 2008, a wave of punitive house burnings has started in Chechnya, the latest chapter in the blood-soaked history of this republic in Russia’s North Caucasus. A new report from Human Rights Watch documents more than a dozen incidents of torchings in which the authorities were clearly responsible.
After the recent assassination attempt against the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the question of whether Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the Chechen republic, will be granted control over the neighboring Ingushetia has become a hot topic of debate. Yevkurov is now lying unconscious in the hospital and Kadyrov is proclaiming that President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia has given him a mandate to lead counter-insurgency operations in Ingushetia.
There is never a quiet moment in Dagestan. There are all the ‘counterterrorism’ operations, when entire houses are destroyed and helicopters fire away into mountain gorges.
A delegation of the International Olympic Committee has just visited Sochi, the Russian Black Sea resort town and future Olympic host city, to assess the status of preparations for the 2014 Winter Games. Jean-Claude Killy, the three-time Olympic skiing champion who chairs the International Olympic Committee's coordination for the Sochi Games, spoke glowingly of the Sochi authorities' "open and constructive" attitude. "The Russian diamond is shining more and more with each passing day," Mr. Killy gushed.
In Copenhagen this month, Human Rights Watch presented its proposal for institutional reform to monitor host countries' compliance with international human rights norms. We also believe that the IOC should make host city contracts public.
Natalia Estemirova was Chechnya's great champion of human rights until her kidnap and murder last month. On the 40th day after her death, her friend Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch commemorates a uniquely courageous and selfless woman.
Back in 2006, Israel's profligate use of cluster munitions in Lebanon caught the public eye, nowhere more so than in the Arab world.
The leading Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova knew better than anyone the risks entailed in her work in the turbulent North Caucasus. She has died at the age of 50 after being abducted from outside her home in Grozny, capital of Chechnya, last Wednesday: she was found shot dead later the same day near the village of Gazi-Yurt in neighbouring Ingushetia.
MOSCOW -- They found the body of my friend Natalya Estemirova on Wednesday. She had been abducted by unidentified men that morning in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, where she lived and worked as a human rights defender. She was seen being bundled into a sedan and was heard calling out, "I'm being kidnapped!" Calls to her cellphone went unanswered all day; she missed several important meetings, including one at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and she failed to pick up her daughter as scheduled at 2:30 p.m.
Since 2008, a wave of punitive house burnings has started in Chechnya, the latest chapter in the blood-soaked history of this republic in Russia’s North Caucasus. A new report from Human Rights Watch documents more than a dozen incidents of torchings in which the authorities were clearly responsible.
After the recent assassination attempt against the president of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Yevkurov, the question of whether Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the Chechen republic, will be granted control over the neighboring Ingushetia has become a hot topic of debate. Yevkurov is now lying unconscious in the hospital and Kadyrov is proclaiming that President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia has given him a mandate to lead counter-insurgency operations in Ingushetia.
There is never a quiet moment in Dagestan. There are all the ‘counterterrorism’ operations, when entire houses are destroyed and helicopters fire away into mountain gorges.
A delegation of the International Olympic Committee has just visited Sochi, the Russian Black Sea resort town and future Olympic host city, to assess the status of preparations for the 2014 Winter Games. Jean-Claude Killy, the three-time Olympic skiing champion who chairs the International Olympic Committee's coordination for the Sochi Games, spoke glowingly of the Sochi authorities' "open and constructive" attitude. "The Russian diamond is shining more and more with each passing day," Mr. Killy gushed.
Many Sochi residents would disagree.