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30 July 2004 Inhabitants of Argun charge soldiers with arson of a two-story apartment house The military clash which took place in the town of Argun (Shali district) on 28 July was followed by a hard-handed cleansing operation in the houses of local residents, who had found themselves in the epicentre of the battle, the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship reports. The soldiers subjected a two-story apartment house to a search, breaking down doors and threatening the tenants with weapons. During the search the soldiers subjected some tenants to atrocities. The soldiers shot Hamzat Hizriyev through his foot during a personal search, and when doctors from the nearby children's polyclinic arrived on the scene, they didn't allow them to see the victim. Then Hizriyev was loaded into an APC and thrown out in the outskirts of the city after several hours. Afterwards Hizriyev was delivered to the central district hospital in Shali, where he was given medical aid. The news program of the RTR TV channel in the evening of 28 July showed a report in which Hizriyev was called a fighter taken into captivity, and a weapon which alledgedly had been confiscated from him was demonstrated. After the search of the house was completed, the servicemen surrounded the building and began to fire on it from an APC, which resulted in a huge fire flaring up. The inhabitants of the house ran in panic out of the burning building, carrying their children with them. It was most difficult for the tenants whose apartments were located on the second floor. Thus, Zharman Usmanova was forced to throw her children from the window of her apartment in order to save them, and then jumped out herself, as a result of which she broke her foot. Usmanova's children weren't hurt. The soldiers who committed the arson of the apartment house made no attempt to save the people living in it, according to the victims. On the contrary, according to the inhabitant of the house Asa Jamuldinova, the Russian soldiers threw a smoke grenade into her apartment even after the fire had started. The house had completely burned down towards the evening. On the following day its ruins were destroyed with an excavator, which then removed the ruin with its shovel down to the foundations. Afterwards, members of the procuratorship carried out searches for the assumed corpses of soldiers from the armed Chechen resistance, weapons and ammunition, or other evidence of gunfire from the basement of the building. However, nothing of that was discovered. Source: Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship http://www.chechen.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3171 [My translation] Never made it taking revenge on Chechens for his brother Several days ago human rights sources released a report about another war crime committed by the death squads of Russian FSB. In the dawn of July 24 a large group of murderers from the so-called FSB special unit broke into the house of Mr. Arapkhanov, a father of seven children who also had four more little children of his dead brother living in his house, and raided it. Back then it was reported that Russian raiders explained that the reason for their attack was to apprehend one of the relatives of the head of the household, who was suspected in belonging to the Resistance Forces (Mujahideen). FSB agents handcuffed Mr. Arapkhanov and started searching the house. Then they suddenly brought Mr. Arapkhanov out in the backyard and shot him right before the eyes his wife and his children. They explained that the reason for the murder was a submachine gun found in the house. Some details of the incident emerged several days after that murder. Sister of Beslan Arapkhanov, who was shot by the KGB, told about the details. She wrote a letter[http://www.ingushetiya.ru/news/3936.html] to local Ingushetian oppositional mass media: «I am Rosa, the sister of Beslan Arapkhanov, who was killed. Here I will tell detailed information about how my brother was murdered. Beslan got married in 1991. He has seven children, the oldest one being 13, and the youngest one 4 years of age. He was also the guardian of 4 children of his younger brother, who was killed by the militants at a checkpoint in Nesterovskaya in 1999. Beslan was a very nice and good person. He loved his family very much. He was a good son, a good brother and a good father. He had a very clever and nice wife Rimma, who is a teacher at the elementary school». «That morning at 4 o'clock armed men with masks on broke into his house. They did not ask him who he was, they handcuffed him when he was in his bed, threw him on the floor, started torturing him and asking him where militants were and where he hid the weapons. At 5:15 Beslan was brought out of the house, all beaten and barely alive, in handcuffs right before his wife and his children, and was shot dead in the backyard. 5 gunmen fired 20 shots at him point-blank." «His body had fractures, wounds and bruises all over, not a single spot was left out. Beslan was executed extrajudicially with a «trial of medieval inquisition». He was a combine operator and did nothing illegal in his entire life. The extrajudicial execution was committed by FSB agents from Ingushetia, town of Zheleznovodsk». Ingushetia.ru edition reported referring to Mr. Arapkhanov's relatives that the murderers kicked his wife aside when she was trying to get an explanation about who showed up at their home at such an early hour and why. They intimidated the children, who got up when they heard the noise, and they entered the room where B. Arapkhanov was sleeping. The raiders hit Mr. Arapkhanov in the head when he was asleep, so that his ears, his mouth and his nose started bleeding. He didn't know what was going on when they dragged him out in the backyard and shot him in front of his wife and his seven children. Later on it turned out that the secret services made a mistake and punished a wrong person. They were supposed to kill somebody named Hachaburov, who was caught having ties with Chechen Armed Forces (Mujahideen). A submachine gun was found in Mr. Arapkhanov's home. The weapon was acquired in order to take revenge for his brother, who was a pro-Russian police officer and who was killed in a gunfight with Chechen troops. When it turned out that combine operator Arapkhanov was wrongfully murdered, president of Ingushetia Zyazikov ordered to pay 100,000 Russian rubles ($ 3,500 US dollars) to his family. So, he never made it taking revenge on Chechens for his brother. Alikhan Egi, Nazran, Ingushetia. For Kavkaz-Center Red Cross Closes Monday for Worker Kidnapped in Russia Created: 02.08.2004 11:56 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:38 MSK, MosNews The International Red Cross is closing its offices for one day Monday in Moscow and several cities in Chechnya and the North Caucasus in memory of a Red Cross worker who was disappeared there last year, Gazeta.ru reports. Usman Saidaliyev, a regional Red Cross worker, was kidnapped by armed, masked men from his home in the Chechen village of Novy Engenoy on August 2, 2003. The Red Cross has decided to suspend all work on Russian territory in order to draw attention to Saidaliyev's case, a source in the Red Cross told Gazeta.ru. Kidnappings and killings are common in the volatile North Caucasus region. An estimated 605 people were abducted in Chechnya in 2003, according to the Interior Ministry. Aug 2 2004 1:49PM 2-08-2004 Press Release 04/45 One year later, still no news of ICRC staff member abducted in Chechnya Geneva/Moscow (ICRC) - The offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Moscow, Nalchik, Grozny and other parts of the northern Caucasus will suspend their work today to mark the first anniversary of the disappearance of one of its staff member in Chechnya. One year ago, during the night of 2 August 2003, unidentified armed and masked men abducted Usman Saidaliev from his home in the village of Novy-Engenoy. Since then neither Usman's family nor the ICRC have had any news of his whereabouts. Numerous representations have been made by the ICRC with a view to elucidating his fate, but with no results up to now. The ICRC continues to appeal for information on Usman Saidaliev. The ICRC has decided to suspend operations throughout the territory of the Russian Federation for one day to express its concern about Usman's fate and stress the need for information about him. For further information, please contact: Anastasia Isyuk, ICRC Moscow, tel.: ++7 095 926 54 26, mobile ++7 903 545 35 34 Flore Blancpain Filipovic, ICRC Nalchik, tel.: ++7 8662 44 23 41, mobile ++7 928 230 05 89 Annick Bouvier, ICRC Geneva, tel.: ++ 4122 730 24 58, mobile ++41 79 217 32 24 Tuesday, August 3, 2004. Page 3. The Moscow Times Chechen Newspaper Closed Down Over Critical Articles By Oksana Yablokova Staff Writer An independent Chechen newspaper based in Ingushetia has been effectively shut down after its editor was summoned to the Interior Ministry in Nazran and told to stop publishing critical reports of the federal military campaign in Chechnya. Timur Aliev, editor and publisher of the weekly newspaper Chechenskoye Obshchestvo (Chechen Society) and a freelance reporter for The Moscow Times, was summoned Wednesday to the Interior Ministry. "The investigators told me right away that I was publishing an anti- government paper," Aliev said by telephone from Nazran. The newspaper has reported extensively on allegations of human rights abuses by pro-Moscow authorities, Russian soldiers and security forces operating in Chechnya. Aliev said investigators took a friendlier tone after he showed them a photograph of him posing with Ingush President Murat Zyazikov during a recent meeting with human rights advocates active in Ingushetia. But police repeated their threat to have the paper closed. When Aliev said that they had no authority to do so, investigators recommended that he relocate the paper to Grozny, Aliev said. He said that the investigators had copies of the paper's most recent critical articles. Aliev was advised to suspend publication of the paper for some time. The head of the state company that prints Chechenskoye Obshchestvo was also summoned to the Interior Ministry. He later told Aliev that he could no longer print the paper. "It turned out that there no other printers in Chechnya or Ingushetia who will print our paper," Aliev said, adding that he cannot afford to print the paper elsewhere. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the move against the paper. Conference Called to End Chechen War Mon Aug 2, 2:22 PM ET By STEVE GUTTERMAN, Associated Press Writer MOSCOW - Leading Russian human rights activists called Monday for an international conference to end the bloodshed in Chechnya, where an official said seven Russian soldiers were killed in rebel attacks. Respected Russian activists including Sergei Kovalyov and Yelena Bonner, the widow of nobel-laureate Andrei Sakharov, urge leading European rights organizations to call an international conference on the bloody conflict in Chechnya, where the second war in a decade is nearly five years old. "The Russian authorities are not ready to begin direct peace talks with Chechen separatist political leaders," the activists said in a statement appealing to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "The Kremlin may, however, agree to take part in a conference organized by well-respected international organizations," the statement said. The conference "should serve to bring about talks between representatives of the Russian Federation and separatist political leaders," the statement said. It said Aslan Maskhadov, a main rebel leader who was elected president of Chechnya in 1997, has repeatedly said he was ready for peace talks with Russian authorities. The activists also appealed to the rights organizations to set up a "contact group" on Chechnya that would immediately call on the sides to cease fire, halt unilateral political and legal action and negotiators. Russian forces left Chechnya after a devastating 1994-96 war, leaving the region with de facto independence, then returned in September 1999 after rebels invaded a neighboring province and were blamed for a series of apartment-building bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities. The activists called the war in Chechnya the longest armed conflict in Europe since 1945, and said that the most cautious estimates indicate "many tens of thousands" of people had been killed, displaced or persecuted at the hands of Russian and Chechen authorities. "It is the duty of democratic European states to show that they cannot remain indifferent to the bloodshed," the appeal said. President Vladimir Putin and his government have rejected calls from abroad for peace talks — including with Maskhadov, whom they consider a terrorist — and are wary about any efforts by foreign governments and international groups to become involved in Chechnya. The activists said Russian authorities have ignored European groups that have spoken out against rights violations and indiscriminate use of force, while calling for peace talks and free elections. Critics say elections in Chechnya, including the campaign for the Aug. 29 vote to replace assassinated regional president Akhmad Kadyrov, have been heavily staged-managed shows in which the Kremlin- backed candidate is assured of victory. Fighting has continued unabated in the run-up to the vote. Five of the seven Russian servicemen killed in the previous 24 hours died in rebel attacks on Russian bases and checkpoints in the region, an official in the Kremlin-backed government said Monday on condition of anonymity. Two other soldiers died in a clash with rebels near the southern village of Roshni-Chu late Sunday, the official said. One rebel was killed in the skirmish, he added. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said authorities had arrested a third suspect in the May 9 bombing that killed Kadyrov, the Interfax news agency reported. Two suspects arrested earlier have remained in custody pending trial. 2.8.2004 Federal servicemen set fire to house with residents CHECHNYA, Grozny. (Russian-Chechen Friendship Society Information Centre). A shootout between Chechen resistance and Russian ‘federals’ on 28 July in Argun ended in a punitive act against civilians whose homes happened to be in the epicentre of the battle. The clash began after mojaheds fired a grenade launcher at the Federal forces’ armoured personnel carrier. During the exchange of fire seven servicemen and two Ingush militia officers from reinforcement detail sustained fatal injuries. Another 12 people were also injured. After the gunfight Russian servicemen searched a two-storey apartment block nearby (26 Gagarin street). According to the residents, the military forced entry into their flats smashing down the doors, made people lie down on the floor and threatening them with weapons searched the rooms. Some residents of the apartment block, including the elderly, were beaten up. Khizmat Khizriev was shot in the foot while he was searched, but doctors who arrived from a nearby children’s clinic were not allowed to attend to him. Then Khizriev was forced into an armoured personnel carrier and several hours later was abandoned in the outskirts of the city. Failing to find any trace of armed separatists in the apartment block, the military shot at the building and set fire to it with the residents still inside, among whom were the elderly, women and children. The military did not let firemen near the apartment block, and by the evening it burnt down. Zharman Usmanova in order to save her three children had to throw them out of the window, then jumped out herself breaking her leg. The military also burnt down the house of 92-year-old Ramzan Bisoultanov whose nephew managed to get him out after the fire had started. 30 July Argun administration refused to provide new housing for the residents of the burnt-out apartment block at 26 Gagarin Street. Translated by Olga Sharp PRIMA-News Agency [2004-07-30-Chech-06] Abductors of Slovak Aid Worker Demand $1 mln Ransom Created: 03.08.2004 15:11 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:21 MSK, MosNews Miriam Jevikova, an aid worker from Slovakia who worked for a Czech refugee aid foundation, will be freed for a ransom of $1 million, her boss Martin Rozumek told Interfax by phone from Prague, saying that his company had received several phone calls from abductors. Miriam Jevikova went missing in early June during her trip to the Caucasus. In mid-July prosecutors in southern Russian city of Pyatigorsk launched investigation into her abduction, with sources in law enforcement bodies confirming that the woman was abducted for ransom. On Tuesday Martin Rozumek, the head of the refugee aid foundation, where Jevikova worked, told Interfax that he had received calls from abductors. "I confirm that the abductors have demanded a ransom for her liberation at the amount of $1 million from us. Altogether, we have received four calls. The first call came on 1 July. We have no idea as to who it was who called us and where he called from," Rozumek said. "We will do everything possible, but it is hard for us to raise such a sum, for we are a small organization," he added. He also said that he and his colleagues hope that Miriam Jevikova was alive and that she would be liberated soon. Miriam Jevikova, born 1976, went missing on 1 June en route from Pyatigrosk in the Stavropol Region to Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia. Memorial human rights group said that Jevikova left Pyatigorsk in a privately-owned taxi — a white Lada car. However, she never reached Vladikavkaz and her colleagues lost all communication with her. The prosecutor's office of the South Russia city of Pyatigorsk lauched probe into her abduction in July. Zyazikov calls for assisting to forced migrants from Chechnya 02.08.2004, 21.30 MAGAS, August 2 (Itar-Tass) - Aid to forced migrants from Chechnya was in the focus of talks between Ingush President Murat Zyazikov and representatives of international humanitarian organisations, the presidential press service reported on Monday. Zyazikov said it is necessary to provide additional humanitarian aid to the most needy part of forced migrants, including from South Ossetia. According to the government, there are 33,000 forced migrants from Chechnya and about 19,000 displaced persons from South Ossetia. |