Chechnya news

February 02, 2004 (Reuters) More than 400 people disappeared last year in separatist Chechnya, official figures showed on Monday, but a rights group said the real figure may be four times higher. Pro- Moscow Chechen officials have complained that scores of people disappear every year, driven away by unidentified uniformed men.

They have suggested that Russian forces hunting for separatist rebels might be responsible for many cases. The Russian military in Chechnya have denied the existence of so-called "death squads", which murder local residents on the slightest suspicion of having separatist links. "According to our information, 444 residents went missing in Chechnya in 2003," a Chechen Interior ministry spokesman said by telephone. "This is 20 percent less than in 2002." He said many of those missing were criminals on the run or had joined rebel gangs.

Interfax news agency quoted rights group Memorial as saying the government number more or less corresponded to its figure of 473 for the year, but referred to only a third of the region. "The figure of 473 kidnappings needs to be multiplied three or four times in order to understand the real scale of what has happened," Memorial head Oleg Orlov told Interfax.

Chechen separatists have fought Russian rule for more than nine years and abductions and killings have become commonplace in the area. Accurate figures are difficult to establish because of an information blackout in the area.

President Vladimir Putin's, whose more than 70-percent popularity rating ahead of a March re-election bid owes much to his tough stance on Chechnya, scrapped the post of his human rights representative in Chechnya last month and entrusted Kremlin-backed president Akhmad Kadyrov with the task.

On Monday the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it still did not know where one of its kidnapped Chechen employees was. Usman Saidaliyev was abducted from his home during the night by unidentified armed men six months ago. "Since then neither Usman's family nor the ICRC have had any news of his whereabouts," the Red Cross said in a statement. "This is of deep concern to his family and colleagues."

Thursday 22 January 2004 [AFP] -- Nearly 10,000 human rights abuse claims were filed in Chechnya over the past three years but most cases have been completely ignored.

A Council of Europe report on Wednesday said investigations into the complaints were rarely completed.

Secretary General Walter Schwimmer condemned poor investigative practices into kidnapping cases in the January report and lamented the fact that criminals were not being arrested.

"There is still much to do as regards to the relatively small number of people found guilty of atrocities in the Chechen republic."

The document is a review of the activities of the council, a pan- European human rights body, in war-shattered Chechnya over the past three years.

According to the report, 9952 human rights claims were laid with the Office of Russia's special representative in Chechnya between 2000 and April 2003.

More than 2050 of these claims related to kidnapping and "people who had disappeared".

The report said in 2001 the office passed on 83 complaints to military prosecutors, of which only four ended in criminal proceedings.

The experts' efforts principally concerned human rights violations "committed by members of the federal forces and by organisations responsible for the application of laws, notably extra- judiciary executions and disappearances," the report said.

The first permanent European experts arrived in Chechnya in June 2000. The remaining two officials left in April 2003 after an attack in the capital Grozny on a convoy in which they were travelling.

Russia and the Council of Europe have agreed on a new form of cooperation for 2004 which will involve the rights organisation providing an occasional rather than a permanent presence there.

Russian forces reinvaded the de-facto Caucusus republic in 1999 in an attempt to crush surging separatist sentiment. They have routinely been accused of human rights abuses.

Some estimates put the number of civilian lives lost in Chechnya at 70,000 since the first war of independence in 1994.

Text of statement by A. Malsagov, president of the Noy Worldwide Chechen Fund, posted on Chechen news agency Daymohk web site headlined:

"The international community must recognize the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria"

I agree with the arguments and concerns of [the chairman of the Chechen rebel parliament's foreign relations committee] Akhyad Idigov regarding the so-called "concept of conditional independence" of Chechnya because this concept does not guarantee Chechnya's independence, but, on the contrary, might bring about the worst consequences for our people as has repeatedly been the case in our history.

Russia has spoken to the Chechens in the language of force at all times. In the last 10 years alone, the Kremlin regime has unleashed two armed invasions aimed at suppressing Chechnya's independence. This proved possible for Russia because the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria has still not been recognized by the international community. Although, according to the norms of international law, it is the duty of the international community to recognize the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

There is no alternative to the recognition of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by the international community. Under any other option our people are in danger of being exterminated. It is surprising that some politicians are beginning to raise the issue of the so- called "Tatarstan option". There is no "Tatarstan option".

It is known that the overwhelming majority of the Tatar people voted for the independence of their republic in a referendum. But the Constitutional Court of Russia annulled the results of the referendum, i.e. 19 members of the Constitutional Court of Russia, in other words, 19 Russian fellows [muzhikov] can annul the will of millions of Tatars in an instant. As a result, Putin equalized the status of Tatarstan with that of a rank-and-file Russian region. And that was the end of the "Tatarstan option".

No "associated", "confederate" or "conditional" membership of Russia will save the Chechen people from the total violence of the Kremlin empire. The only condition that will save the Chechen people from extermination is the immediate political recognition of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by the international community as an independent state. And there is no alternative to that.

In my appeal on behalf of the leadership of the Noy Worldwide Chechen Fund, I call on the whole diplomatic corps of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria abroad to launch a campaign to collect signatures in favour of the political recognition of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by the international community, and suggest holding an international conference called "Chechnya and the international community" in order to help use international legal mechanisms for foiling the genocide of the Chechen people that the Russian aggressors have been carrying out on the territory of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and for substantiating the necessity of the political recognition of the independence of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

[Signed] A. Malsagov, president of the Noy Worldwide Chechen Fund and chairman of the parliament of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria [CHRI] of the first convocation.

Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus – Akhmad Kadyrov and various human rights organizations will work together in the issue of repatriation of Chechen refugees from Ingushetia, stated Ella Pamfilova, head of the Russian presidential human rights commission on January 30, during her visit to Chechnya and Ingushetia.

According to her, “Kadyrov is a reality we cannot change, and so we have to use this opportunity to help the people. If Kadyrov issues orders, someone has to check their fulfillment. And this is the task for human rights defenders."

Kadyrov is the man who will bear responsibility for any rights violations of the refugees, she explained, after visiting the refugee camps in Ingushetia. "I’m very displeased by the fact that in these camps there are officials of various [state] agencies who cannot talk with the people on a humane level. Instead of satisfying people, they puff themselves up and act like big shots," said Pamfilova.

Pamfilova also stressed that forcible repatriation of refugees as well as setting a deadline for closing the camps cannot be allowed.

The agreement was reached during a meeting between Kadyrov, members of the presidential commission, and the human rights organization Memorial in Grozny.

In January, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which Russian presidential human rights commissioner for Chechnya Abdul-Khakim Sultygov was dismissed and Akhmad Kadyrov, whom the Kremlin installed as president of the republic in manipulated elections in October 2003, effectively took over his duties, i.e. responsibility for the human rights situation in the republic.

For many Chechen refugees Czech Republic is only transit stop, insists Czech Interior Ministry

(Prague Watchdog) - The majority of Chechen refugees who arrived from Poland and applied for asylum here last year consider the Czech Republic only a stopover before heading on to Western countries, announced the Czech Interior Ministry officials at a news conference in Prague today.

Last year there were more than 4,500 Chechen asylum seekers in the Czech Republic; and 3,500 left without waiting for their applications to be processed.

According to the Ministry, the Czech Republic was not the Chechen refugees' target country. And Austria, where they were heading after spending a couple of months here at most, was not it either, stated Interior Ministry officials, based on information received from their Austrian counterparts.

Actually, these refugees were heading further west, namely to Belgium, France and Great Britain.

Czech NGOs claim that the main reason for the flow of the refugees out the Czech Republic shortly after their arrival is the fact that the Czech Interior Ministry staff make it clear to them that they would not be granted asylum here anyway.

According to the Ministry, thirty nine Chechens received asylum in the Czech Republic last year; and there are 143 Chechen asylum seekers presently housed in Czech refugee facilities.

On Monday, activists of Czech NGO Nesehnuti staged a protest outside the Interior Ministry to draw attention to the Chechen refugees’ complicated situation in the Czech Republic. Their slogan was, “Don’t Send the Refugees Back to War,” and they presented the Ministry with a petition signed by over 1,400 people who support the renewal of asylum proceedings for a group of 60 Chechens. These asylum seekers had their asylum applications turned down because they illegally crossed the border to Austria. They are now allegedly threatened with deportation back to Russia. The activists regard the Czech officials’ behavior not only as inhumane, but contradictory to international agreements that the Czech Republic pledged to honor.

Members of the Ministry who attended the press conference stated that these people duly appealed the Ministry's decision in the regional court; and in the event they lost their case, they can take it to a Court of Appeals. The officials refused to accept the NGO's accusation that they are behaving inhumanely as the expulsion of the refugees is not imminent.

Today, on January 31, 2004 at 3.20 in Zavodskoy district of Grozny at the outskirts of the city local people came across a corpse of a man (aged 20-25) bearing signs of a violent death and total physical exhaustion. Death must have been the result of a puncture by a sharp metal object in the area of his heart; there were three similar punctures in his back. One of his eyes was put out; the skin on his arms was burnt with either boiling water or some acid. There was a black wind-breaker on the killed man. The public prosecutor’s office of Zavodskoy district of Grozny has initiated legal proceedings. The investigator is Mikhail Petukhov who examined the scene of the accident today. The corpse will be taken to Mozdok town (the Republic of Ossetia — the North Alania) tomorrow for a forensic medical examination.

Khalid Shamaev has turned to members of the Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship with the request to assist him in the search for his relative Daud Shamaev (born 1953) and Daud’s son who lived in Samashki village. Khalid is a native of Samashki village of Achkhoy-Martan district, the Chechen Republic and he is living now in the «Sputnik» refugee settlement in Sleptsovskaya settlement. In the end of 2003 the father and his son were detained by representatives of the Russian force structures on the way to dairy farm №15.

«The review on the crimes connected with abductions in Shali town» follows. It is important to pay attention to the words in italics. They were written by hand and according to the information the Information Center has they were made by personally L.B. Grachov, the chief of criminal police department of Shali district police office. So they are unofficial, to all appearances.

On evening January 20, 2004 unidentified individuals in camouflage abducted a young man, Alimkhan by name (aged 23-23), in Chernorechye settlement of Grozny. The Information Center at the Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship managed to find out the name of the abducted man by interrogating people living in the neighboring houses. According to Muskhanova Tabarik, Alikhan isn’t the resident of Chernorechye settlement. Alikhan called on a girl, Lisa by name, who lives in to house neighboring to Tabarik’s. She saw them talking in the street several times. Unfortunately, the reporter of the Information Center couldn’t find the girl and find out more details of the accident. The Society for the Russian-Chechen Friendship

On January 22 a Grozny reporter of the Information Center at the Society of the Russian-Chechen Friendship met with Sulbar Nasarov, a resident of Grozny. One of his nephews Nasarov Saarbek is under arrest at Oktyabrsky district police office of Grozny. According to Sulbar Nasarov, he is being tortured there and a criminal case is being trumped up against it. Sulbar Nasarov learnt it both from his arrested nephew with whom he met in the presence of the investigator and the eye-witness who had been tortured too. The appeal of Sulbar Nasarov addressed to the acting public prosecutor of the Chechen Republic Valery Kravchenko follows.

Reporters Without Borders today condemned Russia¹s refusal to provide Vibeke Sperling of the Danish daily Politiken with a work visa and accreditation so she can work as her newspaper¹s correspondent in Moscow.

As the Russian authorities have given no convincing reason for this decision, the organisation called on foreign minister Igor Ivanov and information minister Mikhail Lesin to reconsider.

Barring a foreign journalist from working as a correspondent is tantamount to censorship, Reporters Without Borders said, adding that it suspected that Sperling is being punished for her articles on the war in Chechnya and human rights violation in Russia in general.

Sperling could also be suffering the consequences of the diplomatic tension between Denmark and Russia in 2002 over the presence in Copenhagen of Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov¹s representative Ahmed Zakaiev, who is wanted by the Russian authorities.

After previously working for many years as a correspondent for the Danish press in Moscow, Sperling was due to go back as Politiken's correspondent. This is the first time she has ever been denied a work visa and permanent accreditation.

She said she was threatened with expulsion once or twice during the Soviet times, but it never materialised. "Even though I sometimes had to wait for a long time, I always got a visa when I applied," she said.

But this time, she said, the press attaché at the Russian consulate in Copenhagen commented that some of her articles on Chechnya were "wrong".

The Russian foreign minister undertook to reconsider this decision, but Denmark¹s ambassador to Moscow, Lars Vissing, on 8 January received a written reply reiterating the refusal to give Sperling accreditation and a visa, again without offering any explanation.

Reporters sans frontières dénonce le refus des autorités russes de fournir un visa de travail et une accréditation permanente à Vibeke Sperling, correspondante du quotidien danois Politiken à Moscou. Ces dernières n'ont donné aucune raison valable pour justifier leur décision.

L'organisation estime que refuser à un journaliste étranger le droit de travailler sur le sol russe équivaut à une censure. Elle craint que la journaliste soit "punie" en raison de ses articles sur la guerre en Tchétchénie et plus généralement sur les violations des droits de l'homme en Russie. Celle-ci pourrait aussi subir les conséquences des tensions diplomatiques manifestées entre le Danemark et la Russie en 2002, en raison de la présence à Copenhague d'Ahmed Zakaiev, le représentant du président tchétchène Aslan Maskhadov, recherché par les autorités russes. Reporters sans frontières a demandé au ministre des Affaires étrangères, Igor Ivanov, et au ministre de l'Information, Mikhaïl Lesin, de revenir sur cette décision.

"Pendant la période soviétique, j'ai été menacée une ou deux fois d'expulsion, mais cela ne s'est jamais concrétisé. Même si j'ai parfois dû attendre assez longtemps, j'ai toujours obtenu un visa quand j'en ai fait la demande", a déclaré la journaliste.

Le 6 octobre 2003, Vibeke Sperling, qui a travaillé plusieurs années à Moscou en tant que correspondante de la presse danoise et qui devait s'installer à nouveau en Russie pour le compte du quotidien Politiken, a, pour la première fois de sa carrière, essuyé un refus à sa demande de visa de travail et d'accréditation permanente. Selon elle, l'attaché de presse du consulat de Russie à Copenhague a indiqué que certains de ses articles sur la Tchétchénie n'étaient pas "corrects".

Le ministère russe des Affaires étrangères s'était engagé à reconsidérer sa décision mais, le 8 janvier 2004, Lars Vissing, ambassadeur du Danemark à Moscou, a reçu une réponse écrite, réitérant le refus d'accréditation et de visa de Mme Sperling, toujours sans explications.

Chercheur ex-URSS - Bureau Europe / Researcher, former Soviet Union countries (Europe desk)

Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders 5, rue Geoffroy Marie 75009 Paris - France

Russian Federation / Chechnya: Red Cross still without news of abducted employee

Moscow/Nalchik (ICRC) - Six months ago to this day Usman Saidaliev, a Chechen employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Grozny, was abducted from his home during the night by unidentified armed men. Since then neither Usman's family nor the ICRC have had any news of his whereabouts.

The ICRC delegation in the Russian Federation wishes to mark this day by expressing its solidarity with Usman's family.

The ICRC calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Usman Saidaliev and wishes to stress that the abduction of civilians is prohibited under international humanitarian law. The ICRC is also deeply concerned about the safety of the civilian population in Chechnya.

PRAGUE, Feb 2 (CTK) - The "Temporary Protection for Chechen Refugees" should be established for Chechen refugees, according to the petition "Humanity for Chechens, Let's Stop Keeping Silent," organiser Frantisek Kostlan told CTK today. The petition has been joined by some deputies, senators and journalists, Kostlan said.

"We're calling on the government to look for methods with which to enable a decent stay in the Czech Republic to Chechen refugees before the large-scale violation of human rights in Chechnya is over. Like the refugees from Bosnia and Kosovo, the Chechens' stay can be legalised in the form of temporary protection," Kostlan said about the petition, launched by the Tolerance and Civic Association. It is a special institute allowing the people who are prevented from travelling abroad by some objective barrier such as a war conflict at home to stay in the Czech Republic, he added.

The organisers have also called on the government and parliament to start talks with EU institutions and draw up a joint position on the migrants. "This mainly means a dialogue with Germany and Austria, the refugees' most frequent destinations," Kostlan said. According to the NGOs, Chechens primarily ask for asylum in the Czech Republic because this is the only way of legal stay, Kostlan said.

"An overwhelming majority of them want to go home as soon it is safe for them at home. These are no economic refugees nor terrorists, but people tormented primarily by the Russian soldiers and units of the pro-Moscow government and on the other hand, by Islamic fundamentalists and warlords who operate in Chechnya due to the ten- year war and subsequent misery," the petition says. The organisers said that Chechens only had a small chance of getting asylum in the Czech Republic.

"When the request for asylum is rejected, the officials write that they have no objection to travelling out. As if they said that nothing is going on in Chechnya and they can go home. This is not true," Kostlan said. The refugees thus lose any hope to have their stay in the Czech Republic legalised and leave for the neighbouring countries.

"The situation is different than the Interior Ministry says. This is no transit country. We are not giving the refugees any chance of staying," Kostlan said. The Interior Ministry has rejected the criticism. Last year, over 4,500 Chechens applied for asylum in the Czech Republic, but 3,500 of them left the asylum facilities earlier out of their own will. Out of a total of 208 Czech asylums granted last year, 39 were issued to people of Chechen origin. According to the ministry data, most Chechen asylum seekers do not stay on Czech territory longer than two months.

Budapest, February 2 (MTI) - The Hungarian Ecumenical Charity is organising a humanitarian aid programme for 50,000 people in Chechnya, an official of the organisation in Budapest told MTI on Monday. Daniel Fekete said the charity was starting up a three-month programme in early February and would be distributing winter clothing and hot meals from local soup kitchens. Fekete added that the charity had been operating in Chechnya for the past nine years, and had provided HUF 2bn (EUR 1 = HUF 264) in assistance during that time.

The Chechen "irreconciliable" trie "to sacrifice civilians" during Kurban-Bairam holiday

GROZNY, February 3 (RIA Novosti) - A big terrorist act was prevented during the Kurban-Bairam holiday (Id-all-Adha in Turkic languages) which crowns the month of hajj to the Islamic holy places. The regional operational headquarters for controlling the anti-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus reported about it on Tuesday.

"According to the criminals' plan, the civilians who wanted to visit the graves of their relatives at the cemetery in the Leninsky district of Grozny during the Kurban-Bairam holiday were to have become the victims of the terrorist act," the headquarters spokesman said.

According to him, a suspicious object was found by a local resident. The law enforcers, who arrived at the place, established that the find was a homemade explosive device made from a 122 mm mine.

"The bomb was taken away to a safe place and exploded. The names of the persons concerned in making and planting the mine are being established," the spokesman said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) will allocate about $21 million for relief programs in the North Caucasus in 2004.

This sum is on the level of the last year, reported a source at the ICRC's branch office. The ICRC has been working in Russia since 1992, the source reminded.

About 140 thousand people from socially unprotected sections of population, including displaced persons from Chechnya, are expected to receive humanitarian aid this year. They will get foodstuff and goods of first priority.

Besides, the ICRC is going to support the reconstruction of infrastructure, particularly, of water supply and sewerage, in Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, as well as to contribute to the reconstruction of hospitals and temporary accommodation centers in these regions.