CHECHNYA. People continued to forcedly disappear in Chechnya even during
the recent visit to the republic of the Council of Europe's human rights
commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles.
In the early hours of February 12 a group of masked men dressed in camouflage
burst into the Zavlievs' house in the village of Achkhoi-Martan and took away
19-year-old Hussein Zavliev. The attackers also beat the youth's parents. At 5
am same night some armed men took away Mansur Mairbiev from his house on Sovetskaya
Street in the village. 24-year-old Mairbiev has three children. Following the
raids, relatives of the two Chechens have unsuccessfully applied to regional
law enforcement bodies in search of credible information about their whereabouts.
But officials at the regional police department could only tell them that, in
their opinion, the kidnappers were Russian servicemen.
The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society has also reported the disappearance
of Magomadov, Ruslan Abashevich (born 1966). He was arrested in his home in Grozny.
On February 6, Russian soldiers, many of them wearing masks and camouflage, burst
into his house and searched it. Having found nothing illegal or reprehensible,
they took Magomadov with them to an unknown destination. His relatives'
inquiries to the Chechen interior ministry, the Federal Security Service
(FSB) and Prosecutor's Office, and to the Office of the Head of the Chechen Republic
were all in vain. Magomadov is still among those reported missing. According to
Magomadov' relatives and fellow villagers, he had never participated in any illegal
armed formations or criminal groups.