Chechen refugees in Ingushetia pressured into returning home - web site

Organizations web site on 14 October 14 January: On 12 January, representatives of the Chechen committee for refugees visited the Satsita refugee camp located on the outskirts of the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya in Ingushetia's Sunzhenskiy District. According to local displaced persons, the visitors issued an ultimatum demanding that the residents leave the camp because, as they said, all refugee camps on the territory of Ingushetia would be closed down by 1 March 2004 and their inhabitants would have to return to Chechnya whether they want it or not.

The refugees also said that a so-called "Moscow working group" led by the former head of the Ingush migration service, Ivan Pomeshchenko, has the same approach. Representatives of this group, according to refugees from the Satsita camp, go from one tent to another every day asking one and the same question: "Why haven't you returned home yet?"

The "Moscow group" is paying special attention to the refugees who used to live in the Alina and Bella camps that were forcibly closed down last year. Apparently, the residents of these two camps will be the first to be returned to Chechnya. Such a way of putting indirect pressure is extremely frustrating for people many of whom have nowhere to return.

memo.ru 15/1/2004

Aleksandr Podrabinek: seizure of book "FSB Blows Up Russia" is act of intimidation against society

The seizure of the edition of the book "FSB Blows Up Russia" by Aleksandr Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky conducted by FSB (Federal Security Service) officers is an act of intimidation. Such an opinion was expressed by Prima human rights agency editor-in-chief Aleksandr Podrabinek. "We remember how they came in and conducted searches 20 years ago. Everybody knew it was dangerous to read books as it could be a ground for imprisonment. Now they make it clear to the society that it is dangerous to read such books," says Aleksandr Podrabinek.

The edition of the book "FSB Blows Up Russia", which is about the explosions in Moscow in 1999, was seized in late December, 2003 by police and FSB officers. The books were printed in Latvia for the Prima agency, which had ordered it for distribution at retail.

The seizure of the edition is an "attempt to show that Russia is turning off the way of democratic development and coming back to the Soviet past," holds Mr. Podrabinek. He stresses that "this is the first case for the last 15 years when a book is seized by ideological reasons."

Yuri Felshtinsky, one of the authors of the book, expressed his confidence that the Russian readers would see the book "FSB Blows Up Russia". He announced the second, supplemented edition of the book would be published in 2004.

Source: Radio "Echo of Moscow"

2004-01-16 16:25 

Abduction is common practice in Chechnya

GROZNY, January 16. (RIA Novosti) - 595 people were abducted in Chechnya in 2003, the press service of this North Caucasian republic's president reported on Friday.

According to the source, 31 police officers and 5 officials of different ranks were in that number.

In 2003 Chechnya also accounted for 557 cases of murder, with 176 officers of the Ministry of the Interior and 18 officials among them. 266 police officers were wounded.

127 people, 12 police officers among them, disappeared without a trace, the press service reported.

Chechenpress

Terror in bright colors on the children's playgrounds

More and more refined have become the Russian invaders' inventions, and more and more diverse methods have been used recently for annihilation of the Chechen people. At the next stage of genocide of the Chechen people, the priority is given to mine-traps. Over ten cases of blowing up the civilians have taken place for the past two months, and, as a rule, children become the victims of such mine traps.

On December 30, 2003, Aslan, a teenager from the village Kalinovskaya of Naur District, found a lighter in the street. Externally it looked like a usual lighter of "Zippo" trade name. The boy tried to open the cover of the lighter and, at the very moment of opening it, the explosion was heard. Aslan was seriously injured - he lost one eye and the right hand. The villagers who were nearby came to the place of accident at once and took the injured boy to regional hospital, where he was operated on. Soon the representatives of the occupation commandant's office and so-called Regional Department of Internal Affairs visited the hospital.

The newly operated on boy with serious injuries was immediately declared the member of illegal armed formations, who, ostensibly, was wounded when he was placing the land mines. The representatives of the authorities tried to take the boy from the hospital, but the doctor and the villagers who had come to help Aslan's relatives, did not let them take the boy away. The occupants agreed to leave him in the hospital for several days, though, posted a guard. The boy's relatives tried to explain them that Aslan had nothing in common with the military formations and he could not be engaged in placing the land mines, and that the boy was injured when he opened a lighter which he had found in the street, but they did not want even to listen to them.

Several days later, a little girl with serious injuries was brought to the same hospital of Naur. Having found a lighter, the girl tried to open the cover with both hands, and again, as it was in the case of Aslan, the explosion left the little girl without hands. But this time the invaders failed to accuse the child of participation in military actions of illegal armed formations, as the girl is only six years old. Of course, after that case the occupation authorities had to dismiss all false charges from Aslan.

The mine traps, on which many people in different areas of the republic blew up, according to the eyewitnesses, are of bright colors having the forms of plastic toys, audio players, pens, lighters, tennis balls, etc. It is not difficult to guess who the targets of those mortal toys are. It is children who mainly like everything that is bright, it is children who spend most time outdoors and take everything that is attractive for them. It is impossible to forbid them to take things in the streets, isn't it?

And it is not a secret that main goal of the occupation Russian forces is the genocide of the Chechen people, which they carry out gradually through different methods and ways. Each day spent on the Chechen land turn the servicemen of the Russian occupation army into the maniacs inclined to constant murders, violence and robberies, who will never stop. They plunder any Chechen village or any house where the Chechens live. They satisfy their animal instincts by killing the civilians in Chechnya.

Thus, on 7 January 2004, the invaders surrounded the village Alkhan-Yurt and robbed at least ten houses, having taken away 20 male villagers aged from 13 to 60. They scoffed at them for the whole day. One of the detainees, 27-year-old Mahomed, was shot. As to the others, having been severely beaten, they were released.

And on the background of all these mass murders, mockeries and robberies, the red and brown top of the Kremlin tries to convince the international community that there is no war in Chechnya, and people leave peacefully there. They send their messengers worldwide to propagandize peace in Chechnya. Having imposed information blockade around the Chechen tragedy, the Kremlin's propagandists require of the international community to trust their "word of honor", and impudently try to justify the ongoing genocide of the Chechen people in order to avoid the responsibility for their deeds when they are brought before the international tribunal.

Alihan Isayev, for Chechenpress, 13 January 2004

http://www.chechenpress.info/english/news/2004/01/15/03.shtml

memo.ru 16/1/2004

Public organization "Nord-Ost" blames Doctor Leonid Roshal for telling lies

We call your attention to the open latter addressed by the Regional Public Organization "Nord-Ost" to Doctor Leonid Roshal:

"Dear Doctor Roshal,

The statement "of an eye-witness" you made yesterday that the terrorists [in the Theatre Center] on Dubrovka provoked a storm of the theatre and the use of homicidal gas is comparable in its shamelessness with President Putin's statement that "the gas was innocuous". You can not know in principle what was happening in the hall before the storm. You were not there. But there is no need to tell us what happened since some of us were there.

The facts are that the storm of the building began without any provocation from the rebels. They did not start shooting hostages down and did not threaten with doing it. They did not activate explosive assemblies after the storm had begun, even though they could have done it easily. The doze of fentanyl which was used supposes up to 20% of fatal outcomes under such conditions. There is a lot of medical literature about it, and being a doctor, you know it perfectly. What for have you joined in the campaign of misinformation carried out by the power about the events on Dubrovka? You ought to be ashamed!

We repeat that the decision to use the gas was made when the terrorists were ready to negotiate the release of hostages. They were going to do it with the only purpose of preventing the situation from the "Budyonnovsk scenario". President Putin, who gave the order knowing that there would be no explosion, shares the responsibility for the death of our near relations and close friends with Shamil Basayev, who had sent the rebels to Moscow.

We are grateful to candidates Khakamada, Kharitonov and Rybkin for their promises to inquire into the events on Dubrovka. We call upon the voters to second them during the election. And we appeal to those of our nationals who treat "with understanding" the President's decision to sacrifice people in order to save face. Do imagine yourselves and your children as being in the hall of "Nord Ost" or in a compartment of the "Kursk" submarine and think for what they need the power and for what it needs them."

On behalf of the Coordinating Board of the Regional Public Organization "Nord-Ost"

Tatyana Karpova

15 October 2004

Source: Regional Public Organization "Nord-Ost"