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Putin Gives Chechen Boss Control Over Human Rights Wed January 21, 2004 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian president Vladimir Putin gave his loyal Chechen boss full control over human rights in the region Wednesday in a move aimed at improving stability there ahead of a re-election bid. Russian news agencies said Putin had dismissed Abdul-Khakim Sultygov as his Chechen human rights representative, enabling Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov to oversee the issue in a troubled region heavily criticized for rights violations. Moscow says the region is returning to normal under Kremlin-backed Kadyrov, elected in October. But separatist rebels continue to operate. Kadyrov welcomed Putin's decision, which strengthens his authority in the rebellious region. "We are gradually becoming a real Russian region," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Kadyrov as saying. Rights groups accuse pro-Moscow forces of widespread rights violations in Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian rule for more than nine years. The allegations are difficult to check because of an information blackout in the area. Putin's crackdown there has contributed to a 70-percent popularity rating in Russia that makes his re-election a near certainty at March elections. The Chechen Times On January 16, 2004 a group of students of the Pedagogical Institute and the State University of Grozny turned to the state TV channel for help. They couldn't bear constant humiliations committed against them by the Russian soldiers at one of the checkpoints of the federal forces any longer. They told the journalists about constant problems they had to overcome at checkpoints. The students told that their numerous appeals to the law-enforcement bodies hadn't been responded. The Chechen youths are accusing representatives of the Interior Affairs Ministry of the Chechen Republic mostly of the inactivity and shielding criminals committing their crimes on the roads of the republic from criminal prosecution. [21.01.2004 19:22]
The Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship Threat mounts to Chechen refugees Whatever disagreements there may be either within Russia or abroad about the political future of Chechnya, one would hope that all could agree on protecting civilian refugees, including women and children, from being forced against their will to return to a shattered, crime-ridden war zone. But Russia's elite has a deeply entrenched habit of sacrificing the well-being and even the lives of rank-and-file Russian citizens to the elite's political interests. Unfortunately, the West has sometimes cooperated with this practice--as when the British and U.S. governments handed over unwilling Russian war refugees to the Stalin regime at the end of World War II. With the Kremlin now enjoying a greater monopoly of power than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the dangers to Chechen refugees in Ingushetia are growing. The latest threat came on January 16, when Stanislav Ilyasov, the Putin administration's minister for Chechen affairs, told Putin at a Kremlin meeting that all the refugee camps in Ingushetia would be closed by March 1. According to Agence France-Presse (quoting a report from the Russian news agency Interfax), Ilyasov accused the United Nations and non-government organizations providing humanitarian relief at the Ingush camps of "creating a disturbance and hindering the process" of closing them. President Vladimir Putin, however, appeared publicly to disagree with his aide. He told Ilyasov, "You only think they are creating a hindrance. Maybe they are creating less than ideal working conditions for you, but they care about the people who live there. You have to take that into account." Even if those words are only intended for foreign consumption, charitable groups and human rights activists will be quoting them as they try to slow down the juggernaut now aimed at the refugees. That will not be easy. The Itar-Tass news agency quoted Aleksandr Chekalin, Russia's deputy minister of the interior, as saying that the March deadline "is not a bluff but an objective that must be carried out." 21 January 2004,
Volume V, Issue 03 CHECHNYA WEEKLY: News and analysis on the crisis
in Chechnya Kadyrov's son accused of beating Chechen captive Ramzan Kadyrov, Akhmad Kadyrov's son and the head of his private army, personally took part in the torture of an imprisoned Chechen, according to a January 13 article by Nick Paton Walsh of the British daily The Guardian. The young Chechen, for whom the British journalist used the pseudonym "Arbi," told Walsh that police of the Kadyrov administration had arrested him about two months ago, accusing him of fighting as a rebel guerrilla. Arbi admitted that he had fought on the separatist side in the first Chechen war (as had Kadyrov himself), but said that "now I was staying at home." The police took him to an abandoned building and beat him with a metal bar and with their Kalashnikov assault rifles. Two days later they took him to the notorious detention center at Hosi Yurt in eastern Chechnya, where he suffered another three days of beatings. In was in Hosi Yurt that Ramzan Kadyrov personally visited the cell in which Arbi and three other captives were being held. According to Arbi's account, Ramzan asked "Do you know who I am?" Arbi, who had previously seen his face on television, answered respectfully that he did recognize him. Ramzan then "hit me in the head," Arbi said, "and kicked me in the groin. They beat me and broke my nose." Arbi was later released after his family paid a ransom through a police contact; he did not see Ramzan again. Asked by Walsh to comment, a spokesman for the Kadyrov administration denied the ex-prisoner's account, suggesting that "there are many people in Chechnya who look like Ramzan." 21 January 2004, Volume V, Issue 03 CHECHNYA WEEKLY: News and analysis on the crisis in Chechnya
The UN has issued a statement in Geneva expressing concern about Russia's planned closure of camps in Ingushetia housing thousands of refugees from the Chechen war. The statement says that Ruud Lubbers, the UN high commissioner for refugees, expressed concern to Ingush President Murat Zyazikov during a meeting in Geneva yesterday. The UN statement says that closing the Chechen refugee camps in Ingushetia without providing alternative accommodation would leave the principle of safe haven, in the statement's words, "seriously jeopardized." Zyazikov assured the UN official that all those returning would do so voluntarily. Russian officials announced last week that the Chechen refugee camps in Ingushetia will be dismantled by 1 March. Meanwhile, five Russian soldiers were killed and four wounded when Russian positions came under fire 19 times in a 24-hour period in Chechnya. An official in the Kremlin-backed Chechen administration said today on condition of anonymity that the attacks took place in the southwestern Urus-Martan region. The official also told The AP that at least 170 people were detained in so-called "sweeping operations" throughout the country to flush out rebels and rebel supporters.
[21.01.2004 13:15] RFE/RL Disappearances of people in Grozny are going on On January 17, 2004 Khalid Edelkhaev (born in 1956) disappeared without any traces left. He lived in Red Soldiers Street in Lenin (Avtorkhanov) district of Grozny. According to his wife, Khalid being an experienced driver earned their living by driving people in his white "VAZ-21063" car. Khalid Edelkhaev's car was seen the last time when it was made to stop by representatives of the road police on the road going to Petropavlovskaya settlement. It happened on January 17, 2004 between 3 and 4 pm. There has been no information about the Khalid Edelkhaev's whereabouts since then. Relatives of the missing person think that Khalid Edelkhaev's disappearance might be attributed to the Russian secret service. [21.01.2004 21:22] The Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship 1.1.2004
Chechnya, Grozny. On the 18 January during a ‘door to door’ clean upoperation in the village of Kulara in the Urus-Martanovsk region ofChechnya, Islam Soltakhanov, a local inhabitant, was arrested by membersof the Russian armed forces. According to the information centre, CNO, the detainee’s family reportedthat armed men wearing masks and camouflage fatigues had burst into theSoltakhanovs’ home late at night. Islam, who was asleep at the time, wastaken from his bed and led outside before being driven off in an unknowndirection. The location and fate of Soltakhanov remain unknown. According to somereports, Islam Soltakhanov was implicated in the attempted assassinationof the head of administration for the village of Kulara which took placein the autumn of last year. [21.01.2004 19:22] The Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship PRIMA News Agency [2004-01-19-Chech-06] Thursday 22 January 2004 Only 19 human rights cases got to court in 2003 Nearly 10,000 human rights abuse claims were filed in Chechnya over thepast three years but most cases have been completely ignored. A Council of Europe report on Wednesday said investigations into thecomplaints were rarely completed. Secretary General Walter Schwimmer condemned poor investigativepractices into kidnapping cases in the January report and lamented thefact that criminals are not being arrested. "There is still much to do as regards … the relatively small number ofpeople found guilty of atrocities in the Chechen republic." The document is a review of the activities of the council, apan-European human rights body, in war-shattered Chechnya over the pastthree years. Terrible record According to the report, 9952 human rights claims were laid with theOffice of Russia's special representative in Chechnya between 2000 and April 2003. Over 2050 of these claims related to kidnapping and "people who haddisappeared". "There is still much to do as regards … the relatively small number ofpeople found guilty of atrocities in the Chechen republic." The report said that in 2001 the office passed on 83 complaints tomilitary prosecutors, of which only four ended in criminal proceedings. In 2002, of 115 complaints passed on, just 19 ended up in the courts. Russian military censure The experts' efforts principally concerned human rights violations"committed by members of the federal forces and by organisationsresponsible for the application of laws, notably extra-judiciaryexecutions and disappearances," the report said. It also highlighted so-called mopping-up operations and identity controls. The first permanent European experts arrived in Chechnya in June 2000.The remaining two officials left in April 2003 after an attack in thecapital Grozny on a convoy in which they were travelling. Russia and the Council of Europe have agreed on a new form ofcooperation for 2004 which will involve the rights organisationproviding an occasional rather than a permanent presence there. Russian forces reinvaded the de-facto Caucusus republic in 1999 in a bidto crush surging separatist sentiment. They have routinely been accusedof human rights abuses. Some estimates put the number of civilian lives lost in Chechnya at70,000 since the first war of independence in 1994.
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