Today’s headlines speak of the bleak but sadly not unfamiliar news of another human rights activist being murdered in the North Caucasus.  On Sunday, businessman and rights defender Maksharip Aushev was killed when 60 rounds of bullets were sprayed into his car along a highway in the province of Kabardino-Balkaria.  Aushev is the third human rights activist to be murdered in the trouble spot in a little over three months, following the murder of Memorial’s stalwart Natalya Estemirova in July and childrens’ charity officer Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband in August.

The Guardian adumbrates Aushev’s trajectory into the sphere of human rights advocacy, prompted by the experience of his own son and nephew being kidnapped, followed by involvement with opposition activist and journalist Magomed Yevloyev.  After the latter’s murder in 2008, Aushev would take over Yevloyev’s vociferously Kremlin-challenging website Ingushetia.org.  This has been interpreted as critical to the targeting of Aushev by anti-opposition forces: