FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact:  Daniel A. Pellathy, Tel. 202.364.2466

The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) today strongly condemned Sunday's assassination of Moscow-backed administrative head Akhmed Qadyrov and called for a renewed commitment by both parties to end the war through peaceful negotiations.

"Yesterday's attack was reprehensible," said ACPC Executive Director Glen Howard, "and only serves to escalate the cycle of violence in a region desperately in need of peace."

The Associated Press estimates that 24 people were killed and over 60 injured.  Among those critically injured was Colonel General Valery Baranov, Commander of the Joint Group of Forces in the North Caucasus and Russia's highest-ranking military officer in the region.  Russian President Vladimir Putin praised Qadyrov in an address later that day, adding that "retribution" would be "inescapable" for "the terrorists" with whom "we are waging the struggle today."

In a statement to Chechenpress.com, Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov repudiated the bombing and denied involvement. "We condemn any form of terrorism irrespective of ideology, including arbitrary execution, kidnapping, hostage-taking for political reasons and political killings."

Qadyrov assumed the mantel of Chechnya's presidency after an election in October 2003.  Despite being lauded by Moscow as a step toward bringing peace and stability to the region, most western observers decried the results as illegitimate, pointing to reports of systematic coercive tactics by the Qadyrov regime.

"The bombing simply represents the tragic end to a seriously flawed process meant to install a Kremlin proxy in Chechnya.  Only through a genuine commitment to peace negotiations will there be any chance of ending the war. A return to the Liechtenstein Peace Process, started in 2002, would be an excellent first step in reopening a Russo-Chechen dialogue on peace," Howard concluded.

Founded in 1999, the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) is a bipartisan coalition of distinguished Americans dedicated to promoting a peaceful end to the war in Chechnya.

eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 11/5/2004

Federal Migration Service seeks pretext to close Satsita camp

A representative of the Russian Federal Migration Service, Mr Panasyuk, has demanded that the warden of the Chechen refugee tent camp Satsita, situated on the outskirts of the Ordzhonikidzevskaya village, Ingushetia's Sunzha district, should reduce the number of refugees living in the camp to 940 people by all means. This was reported by members of the public Refugee Council. Over 1,700 internally displaced persons from Chechnya (325 families) are living in this temporary accommodation center now.

The reduction of the number of camp inhabitants will give authorities a formal ground for the "legal" liquidation of the last large tent camp on the territory of Ingushetia. Officials of the Federal Migration Service have stated many times that it is uneconomic to maintain a camp with less than 1,000 inhabitants. Such was indeed the motive behind the closure of the tent camps Bart in the town of Karabulak and Sputnik in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya.

The warden of the Satsita camp has reportedly refused to fulfill the illegal demand of the migration service's representative and said to him word by word, "You will go away from here, and I will live here."

Source: Infromation Center of the Council of NGOs

11.05.2004 07:26:00 GMT

Chechen refugees in Georgia go on hunger strike

Tbilisi. (Interfax) - Some 60 Chechen refugees in Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, went on a hunger strike Monday in protest of harassment by the Georgian authorities.

A group of human rights activists and journalists left for the gorge on Monday to meet with the refugees.

"The refugees want the Georgian authorities to stop persecuting them, to stop abducting men and to stop secretly deporting them to Russia," Nana Kakabadze, head of the organization Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights, told Interfax.

She said the refugees on hunger strike in Pankisi are being pressured by "masked people in uniform who are very likely officers of the Georgian State Security Ministry."

She said the refugees also criticize the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for failing to stand by its promises.

The refugees demand that the Georgian authorities give them an opportunity to leave the country to places where they won't be persecuted.

Kakabadze said she would meet with the refugees, look into their problems and try to protect their rights.

PRIMA News 9.5.2004

Search in Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia

RUSSIA, Moscow. 5 May Moscow militia officers seized documents in Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia (IPA), one of two professional psychiatric bodies representing the country in World Psychiatric Association (WPA). The seizure was carried out within the framework of the criminal investigation against Boris Stomakhin.

Senior operational task officer of Moscow City Main Authority for Fight Against Organised Crime (MAFOC) militia Captain R.E. Slipenko along with another militia officer turned up at IPA reception in Novyi Arbat street in Moscow at 2 p.m. They showed a warrant signed by the Prosecutor and suggested that they were handed all the documents concerning the recent psychiatric assessment in IPA of Boris Stomakhin. IPA workers did not impede militia's actions which resulted in confiscation of the report on the results of Stomakhin's assessment and draft materials of psychological testing.

Boris Stomakhin, editor of a small-circulation newspaper (less than 1,000) Radikalnaya Politika, one of the permanent contributors to Chechen Internet site Kavkaz-Centre, is accused of public calls to overturn constitutional order and inciting ethnic, racial or religious hatred. Articles by Stomakhin and other authors in Radikalnaya Politika newspaper figure in the criminal case. Stomakhin regularly takes part in anti-war pickets and street protests in defence of civil liberties and political prisoners in Russia and other countries. On many occasions, legal and administrative proceedings were instigated against him and he was subjected to searches and questioning because of his work.

Commenting on the documents seizure in IPA, President of the Association Dr. Yuriy Savenko stated to PRIMA-News: "Since 1995 we have witnessed resumed wide-scale use of psychiatry for non-medical purposes to suppress new (unconventional) religious movements. Applying an absolutely unscientific term "control of consciousness" very popular with PR people, effectively allows to carry out trials on accusations of disseminating information. In essence, these are the ideological trials of today. Nowadays, as we can see from the recent events, non-religious, political organisations are also presented with accusations [in connection with] informational danger."

Dr. Savenko also said that the actions of the law enforcement agencies in this case are directed not so much against Boris Stomakhin but against IPA. IPA of Russia was founded by four people (three psychiatrists and a human rights activist) in March 1989. Its statute stipulates provision of help to the victims of repressive psychiatry, including preventive psychiatric assessments of the persons under threat of politically motivated persecution by means of psychiatry. The same year IPA was accepted into WPA as the official Soviet Society of Psychiatrists was expelled from WPA for systematic use of psychiatry for political purposes. Currently IPA has more than 600 members, publishes its own magazine, takes part in international scientific forums and RussiaЎЇ public life.

Punitive psychiatry knocks on our doors

Alexander Podrabinek

With Putin's ascent to power, the return to the Soviet methods of government did not leave out the psychiatry. The practice of using psychiatry for political purposes repeatedly condemned all over the world and in post-communist Russia, is making a certain comeback in our country.

The sequence of authorities' actions in the case of Boris Stomakhin bears astonishing resemblance to the punitive medicine in the USSR. Investigation finds publications in small-circulation press that does not require registration, ideologically harmful. Criminal case is instigated against the editor and the author of the articles. There is no article of law (or not yet?) against anti-Soviet campaigns and propaganda but there is an article against inciting inter-ethnic and other types of hatred and public calls to overturn constitutional order. The home of the man under investigation is searched, and his manuscripts, office equipment and books are confiscated. He is referred for a psychiatric assessment to the same old Serbskiy institute. The purpose is clear - to find Stomakhin mentally ill, which gives grounds to carry out a closed trial without the presence of journalists, members of public and friends of the accused, and put him away in a mental hospital "until full recovery". But fortunately the ways to oppose punitive psychiatry are well-known. If in 1970-80s Working Commission for Investigating the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes had only two psychiatric experts (one was imprisoned for 7 years, another emigrated to the West), now IPA has more than 600 specialists who are prepared to help those on whom the authorities are about to bring down psychiatric repression. Naturally, the man under investigation turns to IPA and receives the report about the normal state of his mental health.

Now the anger of the law enforcement agencies is no longer directed against Stomakhin but against those who are doing their professional duty and help him avoid psychiatric repression.

As for collecting evidence in the criminal case, the search in IPA is ridiculous. The confiscated report is in Stomakhin's possession and he himself asked it to be included in the evidence. The drafts cannot have any legal force. The search in IPA is an act of intimidation of a scientific and non-governmental organisation that dared stand in the way of arbitrary rule of the state. This is the direct threat to the honest psychiatrists and a warning to the society: the one who dares speak out against lawlessness will have to deal with us.

Unfortunately the absence of public response to Stomakhin's case makes for the success of the authorities' efforts. Russian human rights movement, cherished by the authorities and sweetened at Kremlin receptions, remained silent when the criminal case against Stomakhin was opened. It failed to notice the search in his flat. It did not pay any attention to the forensic psychiatric examination in Serbskiy institute that was ordered. Democracy supporters and human rights activists say all the correct words at the rallies about universal consolidation of democracy supporters and defence of the human rights but persistently ignore arbitrariness carried out by the authorities under their noses. Sometime this silence will tell very painfully on our country. And while human rights activists keep silent considering Stomakhin's case unworthy of their attention, the authorities are weighing up those who really try to defend him. IPA is the first in the ranks and it may be the last.

In the meantime, punitive psychiatry keeps knocking on our doors with more persistence. It looks as if it will soon start entering our homes without knocking at all, kicking in doors with militiaЎЇs boot to the flats of those who are dissatisfied with the policy of the ruling party and the government.

Translated by Olga Sharp PRIMA-News Agency [2004-05-05-Rus-21]