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June 1st 2004 · Prague Watchdog Ruslan Isayev, North
Caucasus -
Two women and a teenager died on Monday and three others injured ina
landmine explosion in
Alkhan-Kala, a village near Grozny.
The bomb, which consisted
of an
artillery shell equivalent to 500 grams of TNT and a timer, washidden
in a roadside rubbish
heap on Kraynaya Street. It exploded when people were walking by.
The incident is now under
investigation. In the village of Kalaus
in the
Nadterechny district, a group of masked, armed men, drivingmilitary
vehicles, abducted two
local residents: Dzhamil Mutsuyev and Aslan Rasuyev. RizvanMutsuyev,
brother of Dzhamil,
was shot during the abduction. The women gathered
alongside
the building of the Moscow-backed Chechen government demanding to
knowthe whereabouts of their
relatives. The rally was initiated by Kheda Saratova, a local human
rights Saratova called on all
women
seeking information about their relatives to congregate in Grozny
onJune 2, near the building of
the local television station. Because the women were
denied
entry, they formed a small protest group next to the entrance andbegan
demanding to be given
information about their loved ones.
A senior police officer
came by
and asked them to disperse otherwise they would be forciblyremoved. He
even warned one of
the women, "I remember you and I’ll square accounts with you later!"
According to the women,
Security Council Secretary Rudnik Dudayev then ordered the security
guards In response, the women
stormed
through the check-points of the government compound where they weremet
with volleys of bullets
being shot into the air. The guards began to beat them with the buttsof
their sub-machine guns so
the women had no choice but to flee the scene.
Last Updated: Wednesday, 2
June, 2004, 14:41 GMT 15:41 UK His sacking is the latest in a
series of moves in recent years that have led some observers toconclude
that censorship is
creeping back in. NTV - Russia's first
independent television station - was taken over by state-run gas
monopoly Critical
Mr Parfyonov's weekly current
affairs show, Namedni (The Other Day), had enjoyed consistently
highratings.
Everyone should be responsible
for their own decisions and I will be responsible for mine
LeonidParfyonov But a controversial
interview aired in the last edition of the programme with the widowof
Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev, a
Chechen rebel leader killed by a car bomb in Qatar in February,
provedthe last straw.
Two Russian intelligence
officers are currently on trial in Qatar for his murder.
The report had gone out in the
Russian Far East but before it was due to air in the European partof
the country a senior NTV
official ordered it to be dropped. "I couldn't take on myself the
shame of pretending that I had taken this interview off the airmyself,"
he said.
"I said this because everyone
should be responsible for their own decisions and I will beresponsible
for mine."
Media squeeze
Correspondents say NTV once
prided itself on being a thorn in the side of the Russian
authoritiesfrom the time it was created
following the collapse of the USSR.
It strongly criticised the
first war in Chechnya, launched by the then president Boris Yeltsin
inDecember 1994.
But current President Vladimir
Putin made it clear that he would not tolerate politicalinterference
from oligarchs
like NTV owner Vladimir Gusinsky, who had risen to prominence in
theYeltsin era.
Critics have accused Mr Putin
of clamping down on independent media in the run-up to
recentparliamentary and presidential
elections. The NTV staff split, with some
journalists moving to other TV stations which were later closed
downthemselves.
Others like Mr Parfyonov
stayed, giving credence to the government's argument that the
channelremained independent.
But Namedni has continued to
come under fire, and was taken off the air for three months last
yearbecause of a conflict between
Mr Parfyonov and the management. Published: 2004/06/02 14:41:52
GMT The human rights groups'
statement assessed Putin's remarks as "a new campaign against
democraticopposition and civil society in
Russia". "Russian businessmen don't
support human rights protection or environmental protection
practicallyin any way," the statement read.
Deaths on
highway Translated by Olga Sharp
PRIMA-News Agency [2004-06-02-Chech-06]
MosNews
They visited temporary
settlements for refugees who recently returned from Ingushetia. They
also Gross said they did not receive
all the information they would have liked about what is
currentlyhappening in Chechnya, but
added that they have been promised all the data which they
specificallyasked for.
While noting improvement,
Bindig, quoted by Interfax, said great deal still needs to be done
toreconstruct Grozny and the
republic as a whole. There are no basic living conditions in Grozny,
andthe majority of areas are
lacking in water supplies, yet some progress has been achieved, he said.
The delegation of the Council
of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) that had arrived inChechnya
on June 2 left the
republic for Ingushetia in the second half of the day on June 3.
Duringtheir stay in Chechnya, PACE
delegates met with members of the Chechen government and visited
theChechen State University, a
temporary accommodation center for refugees, a school and a
maternityhospital.
"We've seen a number of
improvements, the advance in some sectors of Chechen social and
economiclife," PACE rapporteur on
Chechnya Rudolf Bindig, who was one of the heads of the delegation,
saidto journalists in Grozny. At
the same time, he noted that "holes gape in some sectors, and we
seethat a huge work to restore the
destroyed republic lies ahead." In Mr Bindig's opinion, one of
theproblems that must be solved as
soon as possible is the supply of water to Grozny.
Rudolf Bindig pointed out to
the importance of obtaining information not only from the
authoritiesbut from other sources as well.
"We will ask the Memorial society and the Committee of Soldier'sMothers
to give us information
we need," Mr Bindig said. Nevertheless, Rudolf Bindig and
Andreas Gross met with representatives of the Human Rights
CenterMemorial and other
non-governmental organizations (NGOs). But it happened not in Chechnya
but in Ruslan Isayev & Timur
Aliyev, North Caucasus - Rudolf Bindig and Andreas Gross, the
Parliamentary In Grozny they visited a public
school, local university and temporary accommodation centers.
In Ingushetia they went to the
tent camp Satsita where about 300 refugees still reside. Some ofthem
complained to Bindig and
Gross that they are being forced to return to Chechnya.
“But since they bribed us with
money, we’ve agreed to go back,” explained Daudova, one of thefemale
inhabitants.
According to her, the
administrative head of the Sunzhenskoi district in Ingushetia, Alikhan
Parov, The meeting was very nearly
derailed because of the many objections voiced by those accompanyingthe
Rapporteurs, such as Deputy
Leonid Slutskoi of the Russian State Duma.
Nevertheless, at the end of the
meeting Bindig declared that no politician from the Council ofEurope
could be pleased to hear
about the somewhat divided situation in the republic. On one hand,one
can see that schools,
universities and houses are being reconstructed; yet on the other
hand,inhabitants live in sordid
conditions and many cases of human rights violations still exist,
hestated.
Bindig and Gross will present
PACE with a more detailed report of their findings. |