Human rights advocate and Russian journalist Natalia Estemirova was murdered almost two weeks ago under mysterious circumstances. Her fearless criticism of the prosecution of the Chechnyan wars is believed to have something to do with her disappearance and tragic death. Fellow human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had spent the last days of their respective earthly existences critically examining the the Kremlin and its policy toward Chechnya, both died under similarly mysterious circumstances. Coincidence? From The Economist:

It was the kind of scene she had described many times. On July 15th at 8.30am, as she left her flat in Grozny, Natalia Estemirova was forced into a white Lada. She shouted that she was being kidnapped, but those who heard were too scared to report it. By the time her colleagues had found out, she was dead, murdered by three bullets in her chest and a control shot in the head.

There was a mark from a man's hand on her shoulder, where she was grabbed, and a bruise on her face, where she had been hit. Her wrists bore the marks of bindings. Ramzan Kadyrov, the authoritarian Chechen president, considered her an enemy. And she died as one. She documented hundreds of similar cases in Chechnya, supplying witness statements and photographs, forcing prosecutors to investigate and the media to write about kidnappings, torture and killings, often conducted by people in official uniforms. Much of what the world knew about Chechnya came from her and her colleagues at Memorial, a heroic group which started by documenting Stalinist crimes but continued to trace their modern-day consequences, especially in the Caucasus.

Her murder made few headlines in Russia, which has long been deaf to her findings or deaths such as hers.

We will not be silent. It seems sadly inevitable in retrospect that against the repugnant thuggishness of the Chechnyan wars the earnest call for humanitarianism by Ms. Estemirova and people like her would be met, continually, with gunfire, then -- even more resoundingly -- with silence. Has the West lost its will to stand up to Russia on a non-essential issue like a breakaway republic in the face of nuclear proliferation? Chechnya is clearly not as sexy as "Jon & Kate Plus 8." But it is by the courage of her convictions and the purity of her ideals, however, that we remember Natalia Estemirova as a committed journalist and advocate for human rights. Estemirova was 51 and leaves behind a 15-year-old daughter. May she rest in peace.