| The Chechen Times 11.08.2004 Guards of Migration Service chief beat up refugees On August 10 at about 9 pm the chief of Nazran district department of the Migration Service of Ingushetia Abdul-Khamid Kuzikov and his guards beat up refugees living in the temporary settlement in Yandare village of Ingushetia’s Nazran district. Ella Pamfilova, the Chairperson of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights is going to arrive at Yandare refugee settlement to meet the victims. The conflict between the residents of this compact accommodation site and the district branch of the Migration Service is rather prolonged. It is caused by the officials’ reluctance to perform their duties. The Khatsuev and Indarbiev families who are temporarily living in Yandare have appealed three times to the district department about their willingness to leave for Chechnya. However, they have not been provided with the transport. Yesterday Zara Indarbieva went to Nazran to hand in one more application to the chief of the department Abdul-Khamid Kuzikov as he had lost all the earlier application, according to his words. The official promised the woman one more time that her family would be provided with a lorry to take their belongings. However, at the end of the working day her brother Yakub Indarbiev called Kuzikov to find out when the car would arrive. He heard a stream of invectives in response. The refugee who was in desperate condition told, «Damn you!» Kuzikov told Yakub Indarbiev that «he would pay for it». He did not wait long to realize his threat. At about 9 pm Kuzikov accompanied by his armed guards arrived at Yandare. They were riding on three «Zhiguli» cars of 9th and 10th models. The guards started beating members of Indarbiev family. Other refugees, including activists of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society Zaur Kharipov, Khas-Magomed Gesaev and Zharadat Kharipova, heard the noise and rushed to help beaten people. They attempted to quiet the guards and to stop them. They started to shoot at refugees’ feet in response instead. Then the assaulters grasped Kharipov, hit him with gun butts at his back and told his «to get away» with a pistol directed in his face. Gesaev was also beaten with gun butts. He was taken to hospital later where medical assistance was rendered to him. Zharadat Kharipova was slapped in her face. The assaulters left after they had beaten up the refugees. People called to the Interior Ministry of Ingushetia for help and at about 11 pm the district police officer together with the head of the district administration and some more people dressed in civilian clothes who did not introduce themselves arrived at the camp. They neither carried any investigative actions nor examined the accident site. They didn’t collect evidence of crime (shot bullet cases). Specialists from Nazran district hospital refused to examine the victims officially. They demanded a referral from the law-enforcement bodies. Today the chairperson of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights Ella Pamfilova is going to meet with refugees in Yandare camp after 1 pm. In its turn, the Ingush regional branch is asking all mass media working in the North Caucasus to come to Yandare and to meet the victims. SRChF IHF and MHG protest the De-facto closure of the Independent Weekly Chechen Society The weekly newspaper Chechen Society (Chechenskoye Obshchestvo) was effectively shut down last week, after its editor was 'advised' to suspend the publication of the paper, and a printing house was forced to discontinue printing it. Founded in Nazran a year ago, this newspaper gives regular updates on the dynamics in the human rights crisis in Chechnya and is one of the few print media that was still giving objective coverage to contemporary developments in the war-torn republic. It has already been targeted by authorities several times for its coverage of the conflict in Chechnya. With the de-facto closure of this weekly, Chechnya and the Chechen diaspora lose the only regional newspaper that provided regular reports on human rights violations in Chechnya today. According to the editor of the newspaper, Timur Aliev, who has won several prizes for his reporting, he was called into the Nazran office of the Interior Ministry's Organized Crime Directorate in the morning of 28 July. He was questioned about the newspaper's recent reporting on human rights abuses committed by Chechnya's pro-Moscow authorities, as well as by Russian soldiers and security forces operating in Chechnya. He was 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 Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations in Moscow reported that the director of the Ingush printing house, Souleiman Kostoyev, was summoned to the Interior Ministry, and despite his insistence that the printing house has all the necessary and required documents, including the paper's registration and contract, was told to stop printing it. He was forced to sign a statement that printing of the current issue of the newspaper would be suspended. According to local press reports and Aliev himself, the Chechen Interior Ministry recently sent a letter to the Ingushetia Interior Ministry asking the Ingush authorities to close Chechen Society. However, Ruslan Atsaev, press officer for the Chechen Interior Ministry, told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that his ministry had not requested the closure. «It's possible the letter came from some other government institution in Chechnya, but I would have known if the Interior Ministry had requested this», Atsaev told CPJ. Murat Zurabov, a press officer for the Interior Ministry in Nazran, confirmed to CPJ in a telephone interview that Aliev had been called in to 'speak' with Interior Ministry officials, but denied any pressure on Aliev or the printing house and said he knew of no efforts to close the paper. Timur Aliev believes that due to the harassment of his newspaper, it will be impossible for him to find another printing house either in Chechnya or in Ingushetia, which means the de-facto closure of Chechen Society. «Chechen Society represents a crucially important source of information for all those who are concerned with the situation in the Chechen Republic. Persecutions against its editor, Timur Aliev, started approximately half-a-year ago, but today it is particularly important that independent journalists and human rights defenders in Russia openly demonstrate their support for Aliev and come forth to his defense addressing the Russian Government with letters of protest», – stated Tanya Lokshina, Programs Director of the Moscow Helsinki Group. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and the Moscow Helsinki Group view in these developments another step by the Russian authorities aimed at reinforcing the existing informational blockade on the situation in the Chechen Republic. The IHF and the MHG join the CPJ 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. Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation www.unpo.org 2004-08-13 12:31:16 |