The European Court of Human Rights has announced hearing of the first six lawsuits
out of 150 brought in by the Chechens. According to the reports of the "Memorial"
spokesmen made at the press conference on Tuesday in Moscow, more than 30 lawsuits
have been brought forward with the assistance of the "Memorial" human rights organization,
about 40 with the participation of Human Rights Watch, and about the same number
of cases with the facilitation of human rights center named after Victor
Popkov. The rest of cases have been brought in directly by the citizens of Chechnya.
The "Memorial" legal representative Kirill Koroteev says, the majority of plaintiffs
have satisfied the European court's demands, i.e. have used all possibilities
provided by the national, in the given case, Russian legislature. Koroteev is
of the opinion that Chechens will most likely gain the suits, and this, notes
Koroteev, will be expressed in millions of Euros for Russia to be paid to the
Chechens for moral and material compensation. His colleague Cherkasov reminds
of Turkey having the same budget problems for many years wowing to the Kurds lawsuits,
and finally the country's government had to overview the policy pursued by the
Turkish authorities with regard to the Kurds. Head of "Memorial" Orlov says that
official representatives of Moscow to Strasbourg court are trying to distort the
truth, referring to the historical inaccuracy, though, without any success, as
the plaintiffshave produced the materials proving the accusations towards the
RF. Orlov is sure that most of the lawsuits will be satisfied, and it means that
the European Court of Human Rights will be overloaded with a new stream of Chechen
lawsuits against Moscow.