On 15 July Natalya Estemirova, 50, was kidnapped and murdered by unknown assailants in the Chechen capital Grozny. The mother-of-one worked for the human rights organisation Memorial and was a close friend of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also murdered in 2006.

A human rights activist is killed like a dog, executed, dumped and humiliated in front of the eyes of a million people, who know that what she was saying was true, right, honest and proper.

I openly declare myself a pacifist, because I know what militarism and war brings to young people. I am against all wars and violence and I am very clear about what they mean for women, just as I also know their capacity to rebuild life, to defend it and to disarm it. In Chechnya, the whole weight of the war fell on women. When the abductions began, it was us women who confronted them, denouncing these crimes. In 1995 we organised a peaceful march from Moscow to Grozny. And we didn't just denounce the crimes and violence of the Russian government, but also the violence of our governments and of the armed groups. The role of women is indispensable, it was indispensable in all that time. Without it, Chechnya would have disappeared. Imagine, how it changed our lives: all of a sudden, the traditional strongly patriarchal family has a woman at its head and she must take on all the responsibilties. We demonstrated with our work of peaceful resistance that Chechnya can survive without Russia. You cannot imagine the different situations that we confronted, the resources and strategies that we put in place to keep going. Alone and without weapons! If we think about what men consider to be heroic acts our actions have been heroic acts: the daily work of survival. I remember when we didn't jave food and no supplies reached us. The women found a way of bypassing the military control points and brought food to their families. First negotiating with the military and trying to reach Grozny in a vehicle without being fired on. Then we hired an armoured car and then a helicopter. We converted the weapons of war and destructions to instruments for life. Despite the important role of Chechen women, Chechnya is a very traditional, conservative and patriarchal society. There's still a lot of work to do. But I believe that it's necessary to have a country and then to rebuild it - to rebuild the lives of the people so that they can recover after so many years of war and violence. It's true, we women have an important opportunity for peace and for the future of Chechnya. . Natalia Estemirova

Presidents sometimes say: a serious inquiry should be done in this case. Violence on journalists is not permitted. How could they say otherwise? Today when words count almost nothing compared to the escalating violence, to the human annihilation. Where is the solidarity, the everyday culture of us normal human beings, who know that the freedom to behave humanely, with all those Habeas Corpus human rights, is challenged every day in the streets, in the workplaces -- not only in wars, battlefields, mass graves? Why don't people of any city flock out to the squares as they did for the death of Michael Jackson, or some other mass media idol? Have we grown so stupid and blind to allow assassinations to be part of our daily life? Is this our present-day normality, and if so, what of our future? When I hear Natalya speaking, I have no cultural, racial or language misunderstandings to bridge. I know exactly what she is saying, and to whom she is appealing. She is telling us just like Anna Politkovskaya and many other humanist activists, to live in truth, band together and defend the common denominator of basic human rights. You don't need to be Russian or speak Russian to understand that we are all in the same boat. The abuse of civilians by an armed shadow state within the state is happening everywhere. Democratic regimes have abandoned state control over their military machines; the modern gunmen are privatized, offshored, clandestine and deniable. The best voices, the best actions come not from politicians but from relentless activists, journalists, lawyers. These are the Hypatias of 21 first century: the voices of reason and science. They are not gurus, they are not visionaries, they are not leaders, they are not stars. They bear witness with their lives and write what they know first hand. We must be clear and forthright about what it means to all of us, when assassins burn their books and bodies, as witches, as testimonies of uncomfortable truths. Jasmina Tesanovic, Women in Black Belgrade 19 July 2009.

Natalia, our friend, human rights activist and Chechen feminist has been abducted and murdered.

Natalia, just like Anna Politkoskaia, has been murdered but her life and her words help us to continue on her path, to continue to work for peace and nonviolence, for the human rights of people, and for the pople who have lost their lives defending them.

We demand that the Chechen and Russian governments provide investigations and clarity on this monstrous murder.

NATALIA, ANNA, we won't forget you. Your smiles are with us forever.