| November 25th 2004 · Prague
Watchdog Foreign passports of Chechen pilgrims to be marked Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus – The passports for foreign travel that will be issued to residents of Chechnya setting off on a haj (Muslim holy pilgrimage) will be marked with a special barcode, announced Ali Muguyev, head of the republic’s passport and visa service. “Unlike ordinary foreign passports, whose bearers may go all over the world, the owners of these passports will only be able to go on a haj,” he said. The Passport and Visa Service (PVS) of the Chechen Republic was forced to take such a precautionary measure in order to ensure that foreign passports were not issued to people who were not intending to make a pilgrimage. “The list of pilgrims we received from the muftiate, signed by Mufti Akhmat Shamayev, looks rather strange,” Muguyev explained. “For example, while 19 places are allocated for the 100,000 residents of the Urus-Martan district, there are 35 listed in the application for the Vedeno district, which only has about 20,000 inhabitants.” Muguyev said that the inclusion of the barcode in the passports of the 400 prospective pilgrims was approved in Moscow. “We especially asked Moscow for this, and they met our request.” Obtaining a passport for foreign travel in this way still remains the only option for most people who want to go abroad. As previously, it is still impossible for an ordinary resident of Chechnya to obtain this document. Foreign passports are only issued to representatives of the republic’s leadership, and then only after checking by several security services. Ordinary Chechen residents who wish to obtain a foreign passport have to do so in semi-legal fashion. As a rule they make a temporary registration in one of the neighbouring North Caucasus republics, and obtain a foreign passport there. 24.11.2004 “Cleansing Operation” in Grozny Grozny, Chechnya. (InformCenter ORChD). On November 22nd, at five o'clock in the morning, federal armed forces in armored vehicles and workers for the Lenin ROVD (District Office of Internal Affairs), some with dogs, surrounded the fourth microregion of the Avtorxanovsky administrative region of Grozny. During the operation, two men were detained. It is not the first “cleansing operation” in the area in the last week. On November 18th, early in the morning, in the first microdistrict, on Kirov St., there was also a special action. Forces detained two young people. The father of one of them, 25-year-old Zaur Xadinsov, a worker at a local mill, still knows nothing about the fate of his son. Translated by OM Kenney Information News Agency PRIMA [2004-11-23-Chech-06] http://www.lenta.ru/vojna/2004/11/23/kidnaping/ Chechen Police Can't Stop Kidnappings [tr. by M.L.] Chechen law-enforcement agencies have not worked out an efficient scheme, which would help solve the kidnapping problem in the republic, Chairman of the Chechen State Council Taus Dzhabrailov said yesterday. At a press-conference in Moscow, Dzhabrailov acknowledged that the kidnapping problem is to last long, RIA Novosti reports. Nevertheless, Chairman of the Chechen State Council said he noticed a positive dynamics in the fight against this sort of crime: the number of kidnappings has halved compared to the previous years. Dzhabrailov noted also that the State Council of Chechnya has asked the president of the republic to allow local residents to keep and buy smooth-bore hunting guns to defend themselves. Besides, the Chechen president must consider a proposal to organize self-defense units in the republic's settlements, which, Dzhabrailov believes, will protect them from "illegal bandit groups, which move freely around Chechnya so far." |