| August 8th 2004 · Prague
Watchdog Chechen refugee situation in Pankissi still intense Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus - Chechen refugees living in the villages in Pankissi Gorge, Georgia, are repeatedly being attacked by unknown armed groups. About 11 people were detained for several hours during the latest raid by a group of masked and armed men. The refugees assumed the attackers to be members of the Georgian security service because they tried hiring the people who had been arrested. "The situation remains intense, and people's anxiety is growing daily. We don’t know what we’ll do if the pressure increases during the next two weeks. But I’m sure of one thing: the majority of refugees are not going back to the occupied Chechen Republic," said an unnamed refugee on the phone to our Prague Watchdog correspondent. Rights Groups Protest Closing of Chechen Newspaper Created: 09.08.2004 11:10 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:11 MSK, MosNews The rights group Helsinki Federation is protesting Russia?s move to shut down an independent Chechen newspaper and have called on President Vladimir Putin to stop what it said was a ?campaign of harassment? against the weekly. ?The IHF and the Moscow Helsinki Croup join the Committee to Protect Journalists in calling the Russian President to ensure that government officials in the southern republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya uphold human rights obligations and end their campaign of harassment against the independent weekly and its editor,? a press release from the group said. A printing house that published the Ingushetia-based Chechenskoye Obschestvo (Chechen Society) was forced to discontinue publishing the paper after its director, Suleiman Kostoyev, was summoned to a local Interior Ministry office, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) said in a press release. The editor of the paper, Timur Aliyev, was called into the Nazran office of the Interior Ministry?s Organized Crime Directorate July 28 and questioned about the newspaper?s recent reporting on human rights abuses. Aliyev was reportedly told that ?the officials were not satisfied with the content of the articles, that they regarded his newspaper as ?anti-government?, and advised to suspend the publication of the paper at least for some time,? the press release said. ?Chechen Society represents a crucially important source of information for all those who are concerned with the situation in the Chechen Republic,? Tanya Lokshina, Programs Director of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said in the statement. The group called the newspaper ?one of the few print media that was still giving objective coverage to contemporary developments in the war-torn republic.? Oil Experts Kidnapped in Chechnya Created: 10.08.2004 16:24 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:24 MSK, MosNews Two oil experts visiting Chechnya on the invitation of a regional oil and gas company were kidnapping in the war-torn republic, the Itar- Tass news agency reported. Aleksey Kleshunov and Pavel Yagodkin, both 52, were visiting the republic as representatives of an independent expert organization at the invitation of the Alsu company, a subsidiary of the Grozneftegaz (Groznyy oil and gas), the Itar-Tass news agency quoted a source in the Interior Ministry as saying. Witnesses say there were three kidnappers, two of whom wore combat fatigues. They drove off in a car that had a license plate from neighboring Dagestan. Police have identified Alaudi Ezerbiyev, who is wanted nationwide, as the man driving the car, the news agency reported. Kidnappings are common in the breakaway republic, with rights groups placing the number at around 70 since the beginning of the year. |