Filtration camps set up throughout Chechnya

A decree of the President of the Russian Federation No 2166 of 9 December 1994 "On measures to thwart the activity of illegal armed formations on the territory of the Chechen Republic and in the zone of the Ossetian-Ingushetian armed conflict" became the basis for the following decree on Stavropol Territory, which read: "In accordance with the request of the operational headquarters of the Russian Interior Ministry in the Chechen Republic to establish the identity and to ascertain the involvement of those detained in the combat zone in crimes and the extent of their participation in combat activities against the Defence and Interior Ministries of the Russian Federation, on the basis of the instructions of the Russian Interior Ministry No 247 of 12 December 1994, I issue the following instructions: "To set up temporary filtration centres at SIZO (Detention Facility)- 1 and Detention Facility-2 of the Correction and Social Rehabilitation Service (SIDISR) of the Administration of the Interior Ministry, with the separate confinement of persons brought in from Chechnya;

"I entrust the responsibility for the execution of this instruction to the head of SIZO-1 Col I. P. Sobolev, and the head of SIZO-2 Col of the armed forces of the Russian Federation B. A. Petrov.": (Head of the Administration of the Interior Ministry for Stavropol Territory, Police Gen V. P. Medveditskiy).

This enabled the so-called filtration centres to be set up quickly. One of these was the "PAP-1" filtration centre, which became notorious in Chechnya in those years. There were others, too: the MDOHQ (The Main Directorate of Operational Headquarters); the notorious pits in the village of Assinovskaya and in Khankala; and others unknown throughout Chechnya. Filtration centres have been set up not only in Chechnya, but throughout the Northern Caucasus. The most well-known is the "Stolypin wagons" camp in the town of Mozdok. There were more than a dozen of this type.

When the latest war started at the beginning of 1999 there were even more of these camps in Chechnya. The whole world is now familiar with such camps as "Chernokozovo" in Naur, which won "fame" thanks to A. Babitskiy, and "Internat" in Urus-Martan. But how many other camps are there which we do not know about? There is one in Khankala which is well known to people who are searching for their relatives and loved ones who have vanished without trace. Most of the population is unaware that these places of confinement even exist.

Former prisoners say they were tortured

"He came back himself, black and blue and covered in bruises. When we asked where he had been he said he had been kept in the pits of Khankala. Now he complains of pain in the kidneys. He frequently has fits, and he has other afflictions, too," - says Said, the uncle of a young lad whose mother had been vainly looking for him for two months.

Apart from prisons and pits, so-called "Stolypin" wagons are being built as filtration camps. These were used when Lord Judd came to inspect the camp at Chernokozovo. The wretched, tortured people from Chernokozovo were switched to these wagons, and before the lord's departure they were sent off on the road Naur-Chervlennaya-Kadi-Yurt.

During that and the current war these "places of confinement" have existed not only throughout Chechnya, but all over the Northern Caucasus. These filtration centres, which with great foresight are no longer officially so called, comprise hastily erected premises, usually in the basement if they are actually in buildings, but in most cases they are simply pits which have been dug out in places where there are checkpoints and units of the occupation forces.

One man who had been in one of these camps said this: "We were detained at a checkpoint in the village of Kalinovskaya. After they checked our papers they took us past the checkpoint to a large building which had no bottom, and under it there was a pit with water up to your knees. They pushed us into this building and locked the door and we were left in this pit for several hours."

A man, who for personal security reasons introduced himself simply by his profession (a shepherd) says: "On the fourth day they brought us back to Khankala. Three days later we were taken to the Interior Ministry headquarters at Minutka [square in Groznyy], opposite the hospital, where we were led down to the basement of the commandant's building. Apart from those sent with me there were other people down there, too.

" For example, in Khankala, buildings and pits were used to detain those who were captured during the "cleansing" operations. As in the previous war, various detention facilities were used all over the Northern Caucasus for these purposes.

Chechnya's ethnic minorities are being repressed as well

All Chechen citizens, irrespective of their ethnic affiliation, sex or age, have been and are being detained. They could be Russians, Armenians, Tatars and others who were unable to leave the republic before the war started. In the first war people of non-Chechen nationality were incriminated because they could easily be "Dudayev's mercenaries", and now their "crime" is just that they are living in Chechnya. Accordingly, they sometimes suffered even more than the Chechens.

One Igor says: "They came up to us and asked for our documents. I said I didn't have any. There were four chaps from our village with them. They said they would take us to the DOSAAF [Voluntary Society for Co-operation with the Army, Navy and Air Force]. Here they would establish if we really lived in the village and would let us go. For three to four hours we were forced to kneel, then they put handcuffs on us and took us to Chernokozovo. There they beat us up and hurled us into cells. I ended up in a cell with Babitskiy. This was a confinement cell, 1.7m long by 1.2m wide. I was beaten up again. Why, I still don't know. I had a plan of the sewer, and in it I noticed where the traps were. After eight days they threw a Jew into our cell. He had been a prisoner of Barayev for a year. Somehow he had got away and reached the Russian post. They could do nothing to help him so he was thrown into our cell. He was called Roma, he was 71 years old. He was with us for two days, then he was taken out, but what happened to him, I've no idea."

A shepherd: "They let my son go when I gave one of the soldiers my watch and a hundred roubles. There was a lad of about fifteen there."

Salman: "Some time later we realized that we were in Khankala. They put two women with us in a car. We found out from one of them where we were. Then some more people were brought in from PAP-1, they had been detained along the road, one was an old gentleman of about 70. There were 32 of us in one vehicle which was supposed to take 16 people."

Zura: "There were women with me in a cell in Chernokozovo. Aminat Bakhayeva, a young girl, had been there for two months. They took her off the bus, with the wounded, and she was just a passenger. Svetlana Kozlova, she was taken as she was leaving Groznyy. Polina Nikolayevna Filippova, she was taken in Shatoy on suspicion of being a sniper. She was from Latvia, she was about 30.

"There was a 19-year old girl, Eliza, with us, a Chechen, from Urus- Martan. She was brought in on 27 January. She was in a state of shock, she slept for 72 hours and had probably been drugged in Khankala. With her was Lola Daurbekova who said that Eliza had been raped by several men. After four days she began to have epileptic fits but the doctors ignored her. There was a pregnant woman, Aminat, she was arrested on the way to Groznyy."

Ethnic Chechens are tortured most of all

But most of the people who end up there come from Chechnya, without trial or investigation, unless you include beatings and torture. In many cases they come without any documents or even an endorsement of their arrest. These endorsements are completed many weeks or even months after their detention, if it is considered necessary. There were many examples of this.

Here is one of them: "They took me straight from my house in Staryye Atagi where I was a refugee from Groznyy. I was taken on 28 January 2000, and the warrant for my arrest was signed by the prosecutor on 21 February."

Salman: "I was taken on 3 February. I received the arrest endorsement only on 3 April. They brought the warrant which was backdated. They forced me to sign it. A week later they brought another one where my confinement period had been extended to 3 June." He had been taken on 3 February, during the cleansing operations.

Since the start of the current war each village has been subjected to "cleansing operations" no less than three times. During these brutal operations they take the young people out of the village, people who had absolutely no involvement in the fighting. They are subjected to beatings and torture in the "filtration centres" or within the area where the "cleansing operation" is being carried out. Through these beatings and torture they are forced to sign various papers which they are not even allowed to read. So many of them write under Article 208, para 2: "Participation in illegal armed formations". Then, if they are lucky, several months later these fighters are again "amnestied".

Here is Geliskhan (his name has been changed): "Something is happening which I just cannot comprehend. We, who have nothing to do with anything, are being taken away and tortured into signing documents we don't understand saying we are fighters. They put bags over our heads and suffocate us. They say to us: 'Remember this, if anyone complains, they will go and you will stay here. We will shoot you.' If they don't shoot you, then they can beat you until you are half dead.

"Eventually, we are placed under amnesty, and it turns out that we are fighters, we have been in battle and we have not been shot, we have been "pardoned", they have shown mercy towards us. See what kind of people we are, you have been killing our boys, but we have pardoned you. Together with me there were nineteen such 'fighters'. They took our photographs, and this show was attended by generals from Moscow, and Koshman and his men. Where each of them deemed it his duty to say these parting words to us: "As you have committed no serious crimes, and you have not taken part in any terrorist operations, you have been placed under amnesty. Leave your weapons behind for good and take up peaceful, creative work."

There are interrogation cells in all the filtration centres where the subject is brainwashed: ..."I was taken on 7 February, straight from home during the cleansing operations, which started after the village was shelled from the air and on the ground. Federal troops would come up to our yard and introduce themselves: 'A punitive detachment has arrived'. We were on the move a long time. Then we were unloaded at Khankala and handed over to another punitive detachment: 'The fighters are here!' Then they dealt with the 'fighters'. They beat us up for about an hour and threw us into a vehicle where all 16 of us were kept for four days and nights, without even any fresh air.

"We were each taken out separately for interrogation. The interrogation turned into out-and-out beating and abuse. On the fourth day they took one of us out for interrogation and when he came back some hours later he was in a terrible state. But I had no time to look at him as now it was my turn. I was taken out, a sack was placed over my head and they tied me hand and foot to a post and started burning me with a blow-torch. From the torrent of abuse I was able to pick out some ridiculous questions, such as: Have I been fighting? Why did I not leave with the fighters? And so on, but when I said that I was not a fighter and I have not been fighting, and I had nothing to confess, they weren't satisfied. And the torture went on until I lost consciousness."

What goes on in the filtration centres cannot be comprehended. They break you, physically and mentally. Or rather, they try to reach the point where you haven't got the strength to think about being free. Those who have been through this hell say that the mental torture is worse than the physical.

"The torture of ridicule was no less pain than the physical beatings. We had to endure abuse and derision just as often as the boot or the fist. Worst of all, in enduring blows about the body, you had to listen to them abusing you and your faith and to recognize the disgrace of your predicament. They would say: 'Where's your Allah, why doesn't he help you?' They abused the religion, the faith of all Muslims. You are detained, beaten up, and then they say: 'Turn to Allah', or 'They are drunk all the time.'" Magomed says. (All names have been changed for the safety of the people who were interviewed).

Various types of torture

The torture which people had to suffer and still are suffering can be classified as "the helicopter", "the bag", "electric shock", and many others.

The "helicopter" is a form of torture where people are loaded into a helicopter, their eyes are covered with bandage and the engine is switched on. You get the impression that the helicopter is gaining height, and then they start throwing people off, saying that the helicopter is flying at 200 - 500 metres.

In the "bag" torture, you are taken in for interrogation which begins with beatings and questions which people cannot answer. Then they tie a cellophane bag over your head and start to suffocate you. When it becomes unbearable they take it off. But if they still don't like your replies, the torture is repeated. Geliskhan says: "They would put bags on my head and choke me."

The most widely used of all the tortures in this war is the so- called "electric shock". In this they fix an electric wire to any part of the body and link it to a generator. It is charged and the person loses consciousness.

Says Zaurbek: "I was handcuffed the whole time. This was a special cell where people were tortured by electric shock. They had a special apparatus, a brown box with wires and rods at the end. They attached them to my ear lobes and then switched on the current. I wasn't tied to the chair, and the shock of the current threw me from one side of the cell to the other. The wires were disconnected and then they started all over again."

Here is Boris: "They didn't just torture Bislan, they dragged him along the road to the wood tied to an armoured personnel carrier [BTR]. They poured a tin of nitric paint into his mouth and tortured him with an electric current. Then they took him to the filling station and threw him out. Traces of the electric current could clearly be seen on his head and behind his ears.

"There was one chap, called Andarbek. They tortured him with current and broke all his toes. The first stages of gangrene have now set in and he just doesn't know what to do."

Here is Isa: "They tied me to a chair, started with the shock treatment, and then used the needle. They stripped me to the waste and stuck needles into each vertebra. They would sit down, laugh, drink spirits, vodka and offer some to me. I refused. They again tried the current. They would fix something like rods to my ear lobes and then send as much current as I could stand, until my muscles started to quiver. Then they started to choke me. Not everyone can stand this. They then placed a cellophane bag on my head until you are at bursting point. Then they take it off and pour water over you."

The attitude of the doctors to the prisoners is particularly interesting. Whether he is a fighter or a peaceful citizen, to the doctor he is first and foremost a patient. But when a doctor forgets that before him is not an enemy, but a patient, then he betrays the Hippocratic Oath. How can such people then be called doctors? To trust your health or that of someone close to you to such doctors would be simply unthinkable.

Here is Alik: "They ordered me to squat with my hands behind my head. Then they roughed me up. There was one doctor who knew exactly where and how to beat you. He was just a sadist. They called him Vitya. They had to keep restraining him. On the second day they brought a doctor to us. I recognized him straight away, he was the one who had beaten us up during the night. He asked with a grin - do you have any complaints? I said my ribs were broken, but when he asked where this happened I said I had fallen down some stairs. It was safer to say that."

Here is Aslan: "We had nothing to eat or drink for three days and I was never taken outside. Our wounds were not treated although many had gangrene. It was only on the fourth day that the bosses arrived (about six men and some journalists), and a military surgeon was with them. He, along with a Chechen doctor, bathed and re-bandaged our wounds. They pulled a shard of shrapnel from me."

This is Apti: "I was in such a state that the other prisoners had to call the doctor. The doctor couldn't find any pulse and was amazed that I was still alive. He put me on a drip right there in the pit. There I was, lying in a pool of water under a drip. My mates held the vessel containing the medicine. They told me all this when I came to."

This is Ziyaudi: "The doctor at the hospital where I was sent to after the filtration centre noticed cuts on my body and broken ribs and straight away ordered me to be sent for treatment. But, he said, you could only get clearance through the commandant's office." This is Idris: "He only cried out when he had an epileptic fit. The doctor came, looked at him, and said: "Sort him out."

(To be continued)

[Signed] Society of Prisoners of Filtration (Concentration) Camps of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

Chechenpress, 31.12.03

Refugee camps full, primarily with Chechens

- press [BBC Monitoring]

PRAGUE, Dec 29 (CTK) - Czech refugee camps are bursting at the seams, with asylum applicants being forced to stay in temporary facilities, today's Lidove noviny writes, adding that the situation is primarily caused by large numbers of Chechen refugees crossing the border from Poland.

Czech refugee facilities have a capacity of 2,665 beds, which in the case of need can be expanded to 3,186 beds, the paper writes.

"Now, the facilities are in a state of emergency, and at the third, the highest, degree," Petr Vorlicek from the press department of the Interior Ministry confirmed to the paper.

"People are living, for example, in cellars, gymnastics halls, or former garages, where it is cold at night and the noise of the heaters reminds the refugees of air-raids. Washrooms and toilets are frequently located outside the buildings," Vera Roubalova from the Refugees Counselling Centre of the Czech Helsinki Committee told the paper.

This state, Roubalova added, is likely to continue for a month. "But I have not seen the Interior Ministry manifesting any will to address it," she added.

Non-governmental organisations, the paper writes, have proposed that Chechens receive "humanitarian" visas allowing them to remain legally in the Czech Republic.

"They do not want asylum, nor do they even have any interest in temporary protection. The reports from non-governmental organisations are misleading," the director of the Interior Ministry's asylum and migration division, Tomas Haisman, is quoted as saying.

The Czech Republic, Haisman added, should follow the regulations of the European Union, which regards Chechens the same as all other asylum-seekers. thr/t/ms

Two unidentified male bodies found in Grozny

GROZNY. Jan 2 (Interfax-South) - Two male bodies with shrapnel wounds were found in Grozny, a Chechen police source told Interfax on Friday. The men were from 20 to 30 years old and wore civilian clothes. The bodies were found in a backyard in the city's Staropromyslovsky district, the source said. The circumstances of the men's death remain unknown.

Also in Grozny, a group of unidentified people carrying weapons entered the house of a police lieutenant, Salambek Mezhidov, and seized his Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Furthermore, one law enforcement serviceman was killed and another injured in a quarrel that broke out after a traffic accident in Chechnya's Gudermes district. The servicemen fired weapons in the course of the quarrel.

http://www.chechenpress.info/news/12_2003/1_31_12.shtml [BBC Monitoring]

Chechen web site says civilians tortured in Russian filtration camps The Chechen rebel web site Chechenpress has published interviews with Chechen civilians who say their were tortured in Russian filtration camps. The web site said that the Russians have set up these camps not only in Chechnya, but throughout the Northern Caucasus.

Civilians are taken away on suspicion of being members of illegal armed formations and then tortured in prison and during interrogations, Chechenpress said. It added that the Russians use various methods of torture, the most widely used of which is the so- called "electric shock", where they fix an electric wire to any part of the body and link it to a generator.

The following is a text of report by Chechenpress news agency web site headlined "Filtration centres". Subheadings have been inserted editorially:

When and how were filtration centres founded? What are they? How do people end up here? What happens in them? Beatings, torture and their classification. What are the people like when they leave there? What happens to them afterwards? The price of amnesty.