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Group says Russia now at 'not free' status Monday, December 20th, 2004 By JUDITH INGRAM, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW (AP) - A U.S.-based organization that tracks the progress of political rights and civil liberties across the world said Monday that Russia had fallen to the status of "not free" - far behind the democratic nations Moscow sees as its peers. "Russia's step backward into the 'Not Free' category is the culmination of a growing trend under President Vladimir Putin to concentrate political authority, harass and intimidate the media, and politicize the country's law-enforcement system," Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor said in a statement. "These moves mark a dangerous and disturbing drift toward authoritarianism in Russia, made more worrisome by President Putin's recent heavy-handed meddling in political developments in neighboring countries, such as Ukraine," the statement said. The Russian Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the report. Freedom House said that on balance, the world saw increased freedom in 2004: 26 countries showed gains while 11 showed decline. Of the world's 192 countries, it judged 46 percent free, 26 percent not free, and the rest partly free. Eight rated as the most repressive: Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan. The NGO found encouragement in democratic gains in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, where popular protests forced the cancellation of the results of fraudulent elections in the past 13 months, and it marked "modest trends" in increased liberties in the Middle East, specifically North Africa, and in Muslim-majority countries in general. "Although no Arab country gave evidence of improvement sufficient to merit a status change, modest gain were registered in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Qatar," Freedom House said. It called Russia's retreat from freedom, entering the ranks of the not free for the first time since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, "the year's most important political trend." The former Soviet republics of Belarus, Armenia and Lithuania also saw setbacks - the first two due to the authorities' increasingly harsh response to dissent, and the latter because of "worrying questions about the full autonomy of Lithuania's political leadership" in the wake of President Roland Paksas' impeachment amid allegations of influence by the Russian mafia. Freedom House, a Washington-based, nonpartisan group, was founded nearly 60 years ago by Americans concerned about threats to democracy. It conducts advocacy, research and training to encourage and nurture democracy. 2004-12-20 22:30 UN Rapporteur examines human rights situation in Chechnya MAGAS, December 20 (RIA Novosti) - Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women of the UN Human Rights Commission, Dr. Yakin Erturk arrived in Ingushetia on Monday. She visited the township of Tanzila near Nazran where forced migrants from Chechnya are dwelling and settlement Berkat where refugees from the Prigorodny region of North Ossetia had come to live in 1992. According to Dr. Yakin Erturk, the purpose of her visit is to examine cases of violence against women in the republic. "My task is to inform the world community about the situation which I shall see here," she said in a RIA Novosti interview. On Monday night Dr. Yakin Erturk is to meet with representatives of non-governmental women's organizations of Ingushetia. On Tuesday she will visit the Chechen Republic. On December 22 she is to return to Ingushetia to meet with the Republic's authorities. Dec 20 2004 6:22PM Ingushetia denies reports of gas cutoffs to refugees MAGAS/MOSCOW. Dec 20 (Interfax) - The Ingush authorities have denied reports that electricity and gas are regularly cut off in Chechen refugee settlements in the republic. "I am authorized to state that no electricity or gas problems exist in the areas predominantly populated by Chechen refugees," Ingush Deputy Prime Minister Magomet Markhiyev told Interfax on Monday. Officials from the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs said irregular electricity and gas supplies have been reported in six Chechen refugee settlements. The UN department's Moscow office said in a release that as before, gas and electricity are supplied irregularly to six temporary settlements, in which 1,277 refugees live. December 20th 2004 · Prague Watchdog Two Chechen policemen killed in Grozny Ruslan Isayev, North Caucasus - Two members of the Chechen police were shot dead and one injured in Grozny on Monday. The incident took place when unknown attackers ambushed a police patrol driving a UAZ vehicle at Pervaya Sadovaya Street in the Leninsky district. Then the attackers seized the policemen's weapons. On the same day, two Chechen guerrillas were killed and two Russian soldiers wounded in a shoot-out in the district town of Shali, southeast of Grozny. In the village of Avtury in the Shali district, a 46-year-old local resident was found dead in the yard of his house on Monday morning. According to a source from the Interior Ministry of the Chechen Republic, the victim had died of bullet wounds caused probably by fire that came from a Russian military convoy passing by his house. FSB blackmails young Chechen woman to declare herself a suicide bomber IA Daymohk reports, quoting its source in Chechnya, that Aset Havazhbaudinovna Chuchayeva, born 1985, a native of Chechen-Aul village, Grozny district, who was kidnapped by the FSB RF at a Russian customs station on her return to Azerbaijan on 12 December, 2004, with her two year-old child in her arms, on the same day was driven to the military base of the Russian occupiers in Chechnya at Hankala. And there, by threatening to torture her child, the FSB thugs forced Aset Chuchayeva to sign a false document, in which she alleges that she is a suicide bomber and must act on the first demand from ChRI President Aslan Maskhadov. 20-12-2004 http://www.daymohk.org/cgi-bin/orsi3/index_news.cgi?id=10356;section=3#10356 [Translation by N.S.] Over 19,000 Chechen refugees wish to stay in Ingushetia 21.12.2004, 17.07 MAGAS, December 21 (Itar-Tass) - Over 30,000 refugees from the war-torn Chechnya are residing in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia and 19,000 of them do not plan to return to their homes in Chechnya, an Ingushi government source told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. Houses for 20 Chechen families have already been built in the village of Barsuki and another ten houses are under construction in each of the villages of Achaluki, Gamurziyevo and Gazi-Yurt. Ingushetia President Murat Zyazikov and Peter Mikula, the manager of the joint programs of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in the North Caucasus, met in Magas on Tuesday to discuss ways to improve the living conditions and assistance to the Chechen migrants residing in Ingushetia. Zyazikov pointed out that many temporary migrants return to Chechnya "exclusively of their own free will." At present, the main task to accomplish is to improve the living conditions of those refugees who have expressed the wish to stay in Ingushetia," he said. "I have approached the Swiss authorities with a request to extend the terms of the humanitarian program that are being implemented in Ingushetia, as well as implementing new projects in this republic. I am glad that these requests have evoked positive decisions," Zyazikov said. Peter Mikula, for his part, informed the head of Ingushetia that the Swiss agency for development and cooperation planned to build houses for those refugees who decided to stay in the republic.