Jun 15 2004 2:01PM

Embassy has no info on Slovak woman missing near Chechnya

MOSCOW/PRAGUE. June 15 (Interfax) - The Slovak Embassy in Moscow is still attempting to obtain information on the whereabouts of a Slovak woman believed to be missing in the Northern Caucasus, embassy press officer Roman Rosina told Interfax on Tuesday.

Miriam Jevikova, an employee of the Prague-based Organization for Aid for Refugees (OPU), is believed to have gone missing while en route form Pyatigorsk to Vladikavkaz on June 1.

"We are doing everything we can, but we have no information so far," the diplomat said, adding that the embassy continues to work with the appropriate Russian authorities.

Rosina earlier told Interfax that Slovak Ambassador to Russia Augustin Chisaru has had several meetings with Russian officials, whom he asked to help find Jevikova.

"Russia, in particular, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Razov, Russian Interior Ministry officials, and presidential envoy in the Southern Federal District Vladimir Yakovlev have assured us that all the necessary measures are being taken to clarify the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of our fellow countrywoman and her possible whereabouts," Rosina said.

OPU chief Marin Rozumek said the OPU has no information on Jevikova's fate. "We do not know anything about Miriam's fate yet and believe she has been kidnapped," Rozumek told Interfax on Tuesday. He added that people who may know about Jevikova's whereabouts or be involved in her disappearance have made no contact.

According to earlier media reports, Jevikova sent an SMS message from her cell phone on the day she went missing, which read "I have been being dragged through the fields for two hours."



June 15th 2004 · Prague Watchdog

Human rights activists establish Chechen Civil Society Forum

Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus - Representatives of Chechen non-governmental and human rights organizations recently gathered in Nazran in preparations for the Chechen Civil Society Forum.

On June 9, around 30 NGO workers from Chechnya met with representatives from the Swiss and German sections of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) and discussed what needed to be done in preparation for the coming Forum.

Zainab Gashayeva, from the Chechen organization Ekho vojny and one of the meeting organizers, said that the final Forum conference would take place in September next year. “But the work of the Forum will begin this September, with the implementation of its programs,” she said.

The Forum will include the opportunity for partnerships between Chechen NGO representatives and Swiss public figures and human rights activists, explained Sarah Reinke from GfbV and another meeting organizer.

“The creation of the Forum was necessary to give Chechens the opportunity to represent the position of Chechnya in Europe. The possibility for Ichkerians to travel in Europe is often limited. Our task is to support those human rights activists who are already doing the work, by giving them the opportunity to travel to Europe,” said Reinke.

According to Reinke, each activist will be protected by European politicians. “An agreement has already been reached with the Swiss authorities,” she said. “With so little information about Chechnya available at the moment, it is important that we break down the wall of propaganda.”

The work of the Forum will have two directions: towards Europe and towards Chechnya, where various social projects will be implemented with the aim of developing civilian society in the republic, Reinke said.

The Society for Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker) is a non-profit organisation that was established to protect human rights of religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples. Its German and Swiss sections have been actively involved in protection of human rights in Chechnya since the very beginning of the second war in 1999.



Israeli Ambassador concerned over recent instances of xenophobia in Russia

Jun 15 2004 7:30PM

MOSCOW. June 15 (Interfax) - Israeli Ambassador to Russia Arkady Milman has expressed concern over recent instances of xenophobia in Russian society. "How can it be that in a country where people from almost every family took part in World War II, people can calmly watch their children walk around on the streets with their heads shaved, drawing swastikas and holding up their right hand in salute? I have no explanation for this," Milman said at a conference dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the dimantling of ghettos and concentration camps on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Milman said that the only way to destroy this xenophobic attitude is to improve the education system. "The only solution to this is education," Milman said. He said that "if there had been no Soviet Army, and if the Soviet soldiers, which included Jewish soldiers, had not done what they did, there would not have been victory in World War II." "Stalingrad was before the landing in Normandy, and that is where it all began," Milman said.

Milman said that "there was much suffering during the war, concentration camps, and people, mostly Jews, were killed, but this is not mentioned in [Russian] history textbooks." "The books do not say anything about the Jewish holocaust during the war, and this was the most horrifying thing that happened during World War II," Milman said. He called for changing the current situation. "If we were to do something now, then, at best, only half a page would be printed about this in the history textbooks," Milman said.




Strasbourg Court to Hear Chechen Complaints

Created: 16.06.2004 14:51 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:23 MSK,

MosNews

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will hold hearings into six complaints from Chechen residents who have suffered as a result of military action. The hearings are to be held on September 23, Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.

The complaints are combined into three cases that will be considered simultaneously, an official of the human rights organization Memorial was quoted by the agency as saying.

The complaints were lodged to the Strasbourg Court in the spring of 2000 with the help of Memorial lawyers and the Human Rights Watch organization.

The first case concerns complaints by two Chechen women whose relatives were reportedly executed extra-judicially in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, in January 2000. The second includes complaints from three women who suffered in an attack by the Russian air force. The third one is connected with a complaint by a woman who lost her son and three nieces in a bombardment of the Chechen village of Katyr- Yurt in February 2000.