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Chechen rebel Basayev says was behind school siege 17 Sep 2004 05:28:49 GMT Source: Reuters (Adds more detail, background) MOSCOW, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, in a statement issued on Friday, claimed responsibility for the Beslan school siege in which more than 320 hostages were killed, half of them children, according to a Chechen rebel Web site. In the statement, Basayev, Russia's most wanted man, said brigades of the group Riyadus-Salikhin which he heads carried out the Beslan attack as well as bomb attacks that downed two passenger planes and attacks in Moscow, the Web site www.kavkazcenter.com said. "The operation...in the town of Beslan (was carried out by) the second battalion of martyrs under the command of Colonel Orstkhoyev," said the statement, signed by Basayev under his war name of Abdallah Shamil. Basayev has been fighting Russian forces for most of the last 13 years and has been behind many of the sensational rebel operations carried out by Chechens against Russian targets. The Kremlin put up a bounty of $10 million for him and Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov in the aftermath of Beslan. In the statement, Basayev blamed President Vladimir Putin for the tragedy which he said had been brought about by Russian special forces storming the school after two days on September 3 in an operation that had been planned from the beginning. He said the group, who held more than 1,100 people hostage inside the school, had been demanding the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and, in the absence of this, the resignation of Putin. Basayev said the group had told intermediaries who came to the school that the hostages would be given food and water and the youngest children released if the Russian side began to meet their demands. Putin has ordered a security clampdown throughout the Caucasus region in the aftermath of the Beslan tragedy, but has steadfastly refused to negotiate over Chechen independence with rebel leaders who he says are part of a "terrorist internationale". Commision Pardons the Murderer of Young Chechen Woman Created: 17.09.2004 19:18 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 20:40 MSK, 15 minutes ago MosNews Yuri Budanov who was jailed for the killing of a young Chechen woman has been pardoned. A pardon commission of Ulyanovsk region where former colonel is jailed granted his appeal on Wednesday, Interfax news agency reported Friday. However, this decision comes to force after being signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Budanov was sentenced to 10 years of prison on July 25, 2003, by the North Caucasus district military court, for having kidnapped and killed Chechen Elza Kungayeva. On October 6, the military collegium of the Russian Supreme Court upheld this decision. On March 30, the presidium of the Russian Supreme Court found no grounds to annul this sentence. In May, ex-colonel Budanov made an appeal for pardon. Two days later, he withdrew his appeal because the question of his citizenship was not yet clear and his possible place of residence and work was not determined. Russia's human rights envoy Vladimir Lukin denounced the pardon in an interview to Interfax. After the recent school siege in Beslan, Russia must maintain a tough stance against "the murderers of innocent people," Lukin said, and make sure there isn't an "impression that we approach these issues with double standards." The chairman of the pardon commission of Ulyanovsk Region, Anatoly Zherebtsov, told MosNews that time that Budanov had served in Belarus at the time of the USSR's collapse, and had rejected Belarussian citizenship. In the time of the Soviet Union, he used his officer certificate instead of a passport. He did not receive a passport while serving in Russia. Now, he is unable to get all necessary documents while being in custody. The administration of the colony where Budanov is imprisoned, has learned this facts only now, Zherebtsov said. Budanov's family was then evicted from the Russian republic of Buryatia and moved to Ukraine, he added. Later, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Budanov had Russian citizenship. The investigation found that Budanov had kidnapped Kungayeva on March 27, 2000. He took her to his military unit, questioned and strangled her. He said during court hearings that he had considered her a rebel sniper. The decision of the regional pardon commission must be confirmed by the head of Ulyanovsk region, Vladimir Shamanov, who was one of the fiercest commanders of the Russian troops in the North Caucasus in 1999 and 2000. After that, the decision must be signed by the Russian president. Chechen refugee policy unchanged Majority seeking safe haven unable to prove homeland persecution By Katya Zapletnyuk For The Prague Post (September 16, 2004) Sam has spent four of his six years living in Prague. Sitting in a cafe, while his mother tells about her efforts to secure a future here for the family, the boy draws men with machine guns. "These two guys are Chechens and this one is Russian," he explains in fluent Czech. Like thousands of other inhabitants of Chechnya, Sam's mother, Eliena, 28, fled Grozny and followed her husband to the Czech Republic in 2001 to seek political asylum. Like a majority of Chechen refugees, she was rejected for lack of evidence proving persecution in her country of origin. Eliena was lucky, however. She appealed the decision and won Sept. 10; the Interior Ministry will now review her case. According to the Interior Ministry's Migration Department, 1,324 Russian citizens asked for political asylum in the Czech Republic during the first half of this year. Up to 90 percent of refugees from Russia come from Chechnya, according to the Organization for Aid to Refugees. But only about 10 percent are granted the much-coveted refugee status. Martin Rozumek, director of the Organization for Aid to Refugees, said the situation is patently unfair. "Unlike other countries, including Austria, the Czech government gives asylum to very few applicants from Chechnya. [The applicants] cannot prove that they personally are being persecuted," Rozumek said. "We are convinced that they are being persecuted for reasons of nationalism." Petr Vorlicek, a spokesman with the Interior Ministry, said, however, that there is no blanket policy -- written or unwritten -- on asylum- seekers from Chechnya. "The Interior Ministry is well-informed about the situation in the Russian Federation and Chechnya. However, within the framework of the asylum process, the ministry's goal is not to evaluate the overall situation in the country but particular cases," he said. Vorlicek added that the recent massacre at a school in Beslan, Russia -- which was allegedly carried out by Chechen separatists and resulted in more than 300 deaths -- will not have a direct impact on the government's decision-making concerning Chechen refugees. However, "it may be taken into consideration in particular cases," he said. According to Rozumek, the number of refugees here from Chechnya peaked last year at 5,000 people but dropped dramatically after Czech accession to the EU in May. The Czech government can now send refugees back to EU countries from which they entered Czech territory, including Poland and Slovakia. The refugees are then obliged to apply for asylum there. Stranded at home According to Russian law, Russian citizens fleeing Chechnya should be granted refugee status in other parts of Russia. In reality, however, this never happens, according to human-rights activists monitoring the situation in Russia. The Russian Interior Ministry denies Chechen nationals refugee status, citing the same reasons as Czech authorities: no evidence proving persecution. "They cannot ask the Russian Interior Ministry to defend them from Interior Ministry troops," said Olga Tseitlina from Migration Rights Network of Human Rights Center Memorial. Tseitlina told a Prague-based conference devoted to Chechnya that people thought to be Chechen are being harassed by police in metro stations in all major cities in Russia. Police officers check these people's passports, and if they have Chechnya listed as their official residence they are either fined for breaking nonexistent laws or forced to go back to Chechnya to exchange their passport. "Without a passport, these people cannot get a job or medical assistance, buy a train ticket or exchange money; they cannot even use the subway," Tseitlina said. Rozumek is convinced that Czech authorities' reluctance to give asylum to Chechen refugees is politically motivated. "The Czech government does not want to admit that human-rights violations are under way in Russia," he said, adding that the situation for Chechens will worsen in the wake of the Beslan attack. It took Eliena a year -- and $1,000 (26,000 Kc) -- to obtain a passport. "We were ready to sell our car to buy a passport," said the Grozny native. Eliena has a degree in biochemistry and is a trained nurse. She said that in that North Caucasus republic, which has been fighting for a decade for independence, civilians are not thinking about secession. They just want the war to stop. "Every night when they go to bed, they think only about getting up alive." Katya Zapletnyuk can be reached at news@praguepost.com European press watchdog criticizes Russia for 'impeding' coverage of school seizure Copyright © 2004 Associated Press This story was published Thursday, September 16th, 2004 By WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Russian authorities detained and harassed journalists covering the bloody school standoff in the country's south, a European media watchdog said Thursday, calling their actions "a serious drawback for a democracy." In a report on Russia's handling of the crisis in the town of Beslan, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's media freedom office accused Russian officials of confiscating videotapes and failing to provide truthful information in a timely manner. As a result, local people attacked journalists who they believed had intentionally misinformed the public or exaggerated events, said Miklos Haraszti of the OSCE's press watchdog. "A triple credibility gap arose - between the government and the media, between the media and the citizens, and between the government and the people," he said. "This is a serious drawback for a democracy." Haraszti's report is the latest in a growing chorus of global complaints by press freedom advocates over the standoff. Amnesty International, the International League of Human Rights, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and other groups issued a joint statement earlier this month saying Russian authorities "concealed the true scale of the crisis." At least 338 people were killed - nearly half of them children - by the time the standoff ended in explosions and gunfire on Sept. 3. Authorities say all the hostage-takers were killed except one suspected attacker who was detained. The militants had taken more than 1,200 people hostage. Russian and foreign media outlets struggled to make sense of "insufficient, contradictory or incorrect information," the OSCE report said. "Cases of detention and harassment of journalists occurred, seriously impeding their work," it said. Initial reports from officials described 10 of the militants as Arabs and another as an African, the report said. There were also numerous discrepancies between official and witness accounts on the number of extremists and how many people were being held. Local residents, irritated at what they perceived to be false reporting, beat up Alexander Kots, a correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda, after he erroneously wrote - based on official accounts - that only about 300 hostages were being held, the OSCE said. The number turned out to be more than 1,000. It said a Russian television crew also was beaten by local residents and men armed with hunting weapons who suspected the station's cameraman was an accomplice of the militants. A French journalist and a Swedish cameraman also were attacked, and several others were detained, the report said, citing Russian media accounts. "Unofficially, the fact that journalists arrived at the school only 15 minutes after its capture was used as a fact to prove and accuse the journalists of having contact with the terrorists," the OSCE said. It said men in civilian clothing confiscated videotapes from Boris Leonov, a cameraman for Russia's Ren-TV. "There is no censorship, but there is a complete mess," the report quoted Leonov as telling Russian media after the seizure, complaining that journalists at the scene "became whipping boys" for locals convinced they were hyping the events. During and after the Sept. 3 storming of the school, tapes showing the dramatic episode were confiscated from TV crews from Germany's ZDF and ARD, Associated Press Television News and Rustavi-2, an independent station in Georgia, the report said. The report also noted that results of tests performed by a Georgian medical expert indicated that Russian authorities drugged a journalist with Rustavi-2 television who was detained covering the school standoff. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has called for an investigation.