With the power to capture the complexities of life in a single image, photography plays two unique, distinct, and tremendously important roles in genocide prevention and response. Photographs provide visual evidence so the world can know and remember; they also allow us to understand. By looking at a photograph, we bear witness to the emotions, relationships, and implications of that single moment. In the words of photographer, Ron Haviv, this "time to contemplate, time to absorb, time to put yourself into that situation" has the potential to influence a human being to not only reflect, but also act.

Our website includes an online gallery with hundreds of photographs from regions as diverse as Bosnia, Rwanda, and Chechnya. The gallery also includes images taken by USHMM staff on bearing witness trips to Chad, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In November 2006, during an event called "Darfur: Who Will Survive Today," photographs taken in Darfur and Chad by eight different professional photographers were projected on the facade of the Museum. These photographs include the work of Ron Haviv and are displayed in two albums inside the online gallery.

Following Natalya Estemirova's murder in Grozny last July, the human rights group Memorial accused Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of involvement in her death. Kadyrov subsequently sued Memorial Director Oleg Orlov for libel.

This week, a district court in Moscow awarded the suit to President Kadyrov and ordered Orlov to pay damages, as well as retract his statements. The court rejected arguments that Orlov's accusations were justified "based on Mr. Kadyrov's record of human rights violations and his well-known hostile relationship with Ms. Estemirova." Orlov has promised to appeal the decision, applying to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Reinforcing Kadyrov's stronghold grip on the region, the court's decision has also emboldened the leader to make additional moves against his enemies. He now plans to file a libel suit against the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which had employed Anna Politkovskaya, a human rights activist who was murdered in 2006.

Early this week, Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Djabrailov, were abducted from their office in Grozny and killed. Sadulayeva was the head of a charity called Save the Generation that helped children who had been physically and emotionally scarred by the conflict. Coming on the heels of Natalya Estemirova's murder in July, this latest tragedy sends a clear message that the struggle to protect human rights in Chechnya comes at a deadly price. Violence in Chechnya today is no longer as widespread or systematic as it was during the war, but it is much more targeted and deadly. Fewer people are at risk, but the risk for them is much greater.

Appearing just days before Estemirova's murder, a video aired on Grozny TV and obtained by The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus shows Adam Delimkhanov, the de facto commander of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's militia and a representative to the Russian Duma, threatening human rights workers. "Each one of them," he announced, "be they Chechen or Ingush or whom have you, should know, that they will pay for their words..."

View a new gallery of photographs taken in Grozny, depicting a society changed by conflict, and read in World is Witness about the contradictions of life in Chechnya today.

A journalist, activist, and researcher for Memorial, Usam Baysaev was a close friend of Natasha Estemirova. In "Too Soon, Again", an article for The New Republic, Baysaev mourns his friend's death. After a decade of putting herself at great risk to defend human rights in Chechnya, Estemirova was kidnapped and murdered on July 15, 2009. Baysaev writes:

I met Natasha toward the end of 1999, at the height of the battles in Chechnya. The Russian military was eager to occupy as many towns and villages as possible, without regard to the methods used to achieve this goal, or the number of civilians that would be killed. The region sank into a swamp of blood; there was information daily about the targeting of civilians, killings, reprisals, repressions.

I worked for Human Rights Watch and helped its staff to collect information. I gathered testimonials from refugees in Ingushetia who had fled the war in Chechnya. I couldn't go into Chechnya myself; it was too dangerous for a young man to cross Russian checkpoints in the direction opposite to the flow of refugees. If a Chechen man tried to go into Chechnya, he would be suspected of being a fighter, and at minimum detained. And, once detained, then quite likely to disappear without trace.

The only ones who could risk going in and out of the warring republic were women. For this reason, in the first, hardest, and bloodiest months of the war, the work of Memorial, a Russian human rights organization best known for extensively documenting abuses during and after the two Chechen wars, was built exclusively on women's personal heroism--their willingness to risk their lives on a daily basis…

Natasha demanded a very cautious treatment of testimonies. She thought that sometimes, it was better not to publicize the facts, at least not right away… Only in very unique situations, when it was necessary to save a life or preserve the person's health, only then would she summon her courage and reveal her source...

A few days ago, the friends and colleagues of Natasha Estemirova, and those whom she had helped, carried her coffin down Victory Boulevard in Grozny, past tacky signs with Putin's name. After that, we held a meeting of Memorial staff, including our colleagues from Moscow, where all the Chechens insisted that we wanted to continue working. The work of the Memorial office in Grozny is only temporarily suspended. After we mourn Natasha and think through strategies and logistics, we shall resume. In that continued effort, there might be some small victory for Natasha.

On the morning of July 15, 2009, Natalya Estemirova was abducted near her home in Grozny, Chechnya. As people on a nearby balcony heard her call for help, Estemirova was forced into a car. Her body was found a few hours later near a highway in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia.

Estemirova was a prominent human rights worker who for a decade had documented abuses, kidnappings, and killings for the Russian human rights group Memorial. She was the recipient of the first annual Anna Politkovskaya award, created by Reach all Women in War in honor of the murdered Russian journalist who courageously covered Chechnya for years. The award recognizes women who are defending human rights in zones of war and conflict, often at great personal risk.

Like many who have exposed human rights abuses in Chechnya, Estemirova's work met threats and condemnations from Chechen authorities. In March 2008, when Estemirova criticized a new law requiring Chechen women to wear head scarves, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov summoned her to a personal meeting and threatened her. Frightened by the experience, Estemirova went abroad for several months. Then she returned.

The tragedy of her death was compounded by the subsequent closure of Memorial's office in Chechnya. Alexander Cherkasov, Memorial executive committee member, explained, "We have seen that the work Natasha was involved in, the work done by our colleagues in Chechnya -- documenting crimes committed by representatives of the authorities -- is fatally dangerous. We can't put them at risk." The Memorial office in Chechnya, which operated throughout the conflict, provided critical -- and oftentimes the only -- information about human rights abuses in the Russian republic.


Update: On Sunday, July 26, a suicide bomb killed six people outside a concert hall in Grozny as a crowd gathered for a performance. It was the second bombing in Grozny this month.

Since Estemirova's death two weeks ago, Memorial has accused President Kadyrov of involvement in her murder; Mr. Kadyrov has announced that he is suing the human rights group for slander.


For more information about Natalya Estemirova, her work, and the situation in Chechnya, please visit:

Memorial
Chechnya Advocacy
Human Rights Watch
The American Committee for Peace in the Caucuses

Not long ago, a Chechen man named Nazir was visited by armed men in camouflage uniforms who gathered boards to start a bonfire alongside his home. Realizing what was about to happen, Nazir pleaded, "Why do I have to pay for the crimes of my relatives over whom I have no influence? But if this has been decided, I can't do anything about it. However, please listen to me. My roof touches my neighbor's roof. If you start burning my house, the fire will spread over to my neighbor's house." Considering the problem, the armed men patiently called a contractor to come separate the roofs before they set fire to Nazir's house. There was no doubt that they acted with deliberation and impunity.

Nazir's experience was not unique. A new Human Rights Watch report documents punitive house-burning, where families of insurgents have been intimidated and their homes burned down by local Chechen law enforcement personnel in targeted arson attacks across Chechnya.

In August 2008, the mayor of Grozny, Muslim Khuchiev, announced on television:

"In the future, if your relatives commit an act of evil, this evil will be brought upon you, your other family members and even your descendants... The evil perpetrated by your relatives from the woods will come back to your own houses and in the very near future every one [of you] will feel it on your own back."

Written in cooperation with the Russian human rights NGO Memorial, the report details these cases and confirms that they are perpetrated mainly by "law enforcement and security personnel under the de facto control of the republic's president, Ramzan Kadyrov."

The July 2009 report, "What Your Children Do Will Touch Upon You", is available at HRW's website here.