| April
13th 2005 · Prague Watchdog Humanitarian workers in North Caucasus fear punitive measures By Timur Aliyev NAZRAN, Ingushetia – Workers of humanitarian missions in Chechnya and Ingushetia fear punitive measures against themselves and their organizations. They have spoken of this in private conversations with Prague Watchdog’s correspondent. The grounds for their increased apprehension are the recent events at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo-2 Airport, where two workers of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) were refused entry to Russia by customs control. On the evening of April 8 an IRC worker who is a citizen of Azerbaijan was refused entry, while on April 9 Antoine Duplouy, head of the IRC Mission in the Northern Caucasus, was unable to get through. One of PW’s contacts supposes that the punitive measures taken against IRC workers were a consequence of the IRC’s having won legal proceedings in Nazran against the regional directorate of the Federal Security Service (FSB). These proceedings were instituted by the FSB directorate itself, which considered that the organization had committed an administrative violation by not providing the FSB with lists of its workers. The situation which has developed around the Czech organization “People In Need” (PIN) is well known. After the shoot-out that took place in December 2004 at a building in Grozny with a relative of one of the organization’s female workers, the Russian press unleashed a flood of compromising material (kompromat) against the organization. Thus, at the end of March an article entitled “Are the sub-machine guns of the UN shooting at our people?” was published in the Russian weekly Argumenty i Fakty, in which the Czech organization was indirectly accused of transporting narcotics and sponsoring guerrillas. Moreover, in the words of PW’s sources, “gentle pressure” is being brought to bear on the humanitarian missions in Ingushetia – since February constant checks have been conducted in the organizations’ offices, involving sanitary commissions and fire inspections. The humanitarian workers also fear that their work accreditation in Russia will not be extended, as is the case with two workers of the Polish Humanitarian Organisation (Polska Akcja Humanitarna, PHO), which also conducts its activity in Ingushetia and Chechnya. In the run-up to the visit to the North Caucasus of a delegation of the European Commission, PW’s sources place emphasis on the fact that many of the humanitarian organizations in Chechnya and Ingushetia are the European Commission's implementing partners. Translated by David McDuff. Russian Federation: 1,700 people currently listed disappeared in Chechnya - officials MOSCOW, April 12 (AFP) - About 1,700 people are currently listed as missing in Chechnya, the shattered mountain region where Russia is fighting separatist rebels, a pro-Russian official said Tuesday. The figure was given during a meeting between pro-Russian Chechen police and justice officials, the Russian armed forces, and relatives of some of the disappeared, the official, Sultan Salmanov, was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS news agency. According to Salmanov this was the first such meeting with victims' families since the start of the current war, which began in 1999, three years after an earlier 1994-96 conflict. Just in one district of the devastated regional capital Grozny 177 people were still missing, Salmanov said. The rate of such abductions has "considerably dropped" recently, but success rates in finding those missing remain poor, he said. Local justice officials say that 1,814 inquiries had been opened during the last five years into 2,540 cases of disappearances. Human rights organisations say Russian troops and locally recruited Chechen militias carry out nearly all abductions in a campaign aimed at rooting out rebels, punishing their families, or simply extracting ransoms. According to the Russian non-governmental organisation Memorial between 3,000 and 5,000 people vanished after being arrested or abducted in the last five years. The US-based Human Rights Watch said recently that disappearances in the mostly-Muslim Caucasus region ranked as a "crime against humanity." http://friendly.narod.ru/ PRESS-RELEASE #1230 FROM APRIL 3, 2005 Report from THE CHECHEN REPUBLIK Urus-Martan district. “Mopping-up” operation in Alkhan-Yurt April 2, 2005. Early in the morning, the village Alkhan-Yurt in the Urus-Martan district of the Chechen Republic was closed off by federal forces who were carrying out a special operation. There is no information about whether any local residents were detained. According to Alkhan-Yurt residents the operation went on for about 13 hours. Local residents abducted in the village Gekhi April 2, 2005. Around 6 p.m. in the village Gekhi in the Urus-Martan district of the Chechen Republic local resident Vakha Dadakhaev was abducted from his own home by a group of unidentified armed individuals. The perpetrators arrived in three cars: two UAZ and one ’99 Zhiguli. The relatives of the abducted man turned with verbal inquiries to the Urus-Martan regional police, and also to the federal military base in the Khankala settlement. However, the fate and whereabouts of Vakha Dadakhaeva remained unknown. (Our corr.) PRESS-RELEASE #1229 FROM MARCH 31, 2005 Report from THE CHECHEN REPUBLIK Achkhoy-Martan district. Nightly abduction in the Samashki village On the night between March 30 and 31, 2005, in the Samashki village in the Achkhoy-Martan district in the Chechen Republic, unidentified armed individuals, traveling in two cars of the make VAZ 99th and 10th models, unlawfully detained Khizir Ibragimovich Isratov (born 1976) and took him away in an unknown direction. Isratov lives in the Davydenko settlement in the Achkhoy-Martan district on 1 Vostochnaya street. Another abduction in the Samashki village March 30, 2005. Iradi Alievich Gaziev, living on 1 Gornaya street in Samashki village, turned to the Achkhoy-Martan district police reporting that at 7:15 a.m. on March 17, 2005, a group of 15 armed individuals violently seized Lom-Ali Alievich Gaziev. According to the report, the perpetrators were officials from RUBOP and traveled in two cars of the makes Niva and VAZ 2110. (Our corr.) PRESS-RELEASE #1225 FROM MARCH 29, 2005 Report from THE CHECHEN REPUBLIK Archkhoy-Martan district. Abducted Achkhoy-Martan residents released after beating March 28, 2005. Local residents Aslan Magomadov (born 1973) and Magomed Suleymanov, 26 years old, were released in the regional center Achkhoy-Martan in the Chechen republic. They were brought away by officers of unknown state agencies between March 27 and 28, 2005. Aslan Magomadov was taken from his own home around 10 p.m. on March 27. He was released the next day after having been beaten. Magomed Suleymanov was taken from his own home around 4 a.m. on March 28. According to the released man’s father, Leja Suleymanov, the individuals who seized his son explained that they were taking him away for questioning. Around 5 p.m. on March 28 Magomed Suleymanov was also released after having been beaten during transportation. The very same individuals who took away Aslan Magomadov and Magomed Suleymanov are purportedly also connected to the attempted arbitrary detainment of 12-year old Belal Arsanov. Around 3 a.m. on March 28 officers of unknown state agencies stormed into his home. Among the intruders were both ethnic Chechens and ethnic Russians. In the home at the time of the intrusion were the head of the household, Alavdi Arsanov (born 1968), his spouse, and his 12-year old son Belal. Pushing Alavdi Arsanov aside, the attackers stormed in to the room where his son was sleeping. Lifting the boy out of the bed, they began an interrogation. Pointing a gun at Belal, they started asking questions about his connections. As stated by Belal, after he saw the gun the unknown individuals ordered him to get dressed and took him into the yard. However, thanks to the intervention of Alavdi Arsanov, the officers did not succeed in taking the boy away. (Our corr.) PRESS-RELEASE #1223 FROM MARCH 28, 2005 Architectural planning director abducted in Shamoyskiy district March 27, 2005. Around 6 a.m. Suleymanov Turpal-Ali, around 45 years old, director of the architectural planning and construction department of the Shamoyskiy district, was abducted from his own home in the Borzoy village in the Shamoyskiy district in the Chechen Republic by a group of armed individuals dressed in camouflage uniforms. The abductors were traveling in a white “Niva” and disappeared in an unknown direction. (Our corr.) ECHR: Georgia to Pay EUR 84,500 to 13 Chechens The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against Georgia in a case submitted to the court by 13 citizens of Russia and Georgia of Chechen origin, who were detained by the Georgian border guards in August 2002 near the Russian border, the ECHR press release reads: http://www.echr.coe.int/eng/Press/2005/April/ChamberjudgmentShamayevand12Others120405.htm According to the ECHR ruling Georgia has to pay 13 applicants, for non-pecuniary damage, the overall sum of 80,500 euros (EUR), in awards ranging from EUR 2,500 to EUR 11,000, and EUR 4,000 to the applicants jointly for costs and expenses. 5 Chechens out of 13 were extradited to Russia in October, 2002. Applicants complained extradition to Russia, where capital punishment had not been abolished, exposed them to a real danger of death or torture. They further complained of the treatment inflicted on them while being in Georgian detention center. This is the second case, when the ECHR rules against Georgia. The government had to pay EUR 150,000 to Tengiz Asanidze, after ECHR ruled last April to release him from Adjarian Security Ministry's jail, after twelve-year imprisonment. C B C . C A Russian independent journalists decry state control Tue, 12 Apr 2005 MOSCOW - One of Russia's most well-known independent journalists has left the country because he says the Kremlin is gradually eliminating free speech among the Russian media. Lithuanian-born and Canadian-raised Savik Shuster hosted the popular weekly political talk show Free Speech on the NTV network and, despite being praised as the last independent journalist on Russian television, he left Moscow last weekend and moved to Ukraine. Shuster's move was prompted when his employment contract was cancelled last fall after he criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin's handling of the Beslan hostage crisis on air. "Russia today is very much afraid of what happened in Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan," he told CBC News. "Free TV is unthinkable in this political situation." Shuster, also a former Newsweek correspondent, is set to launch a new discussion program on Ukrainian television and he said that other Russian opposition journalists would likely follow his move. Since Putin came to power five years ago, he and his advisors – primarily made up of other former KGB officers like himself – have chipped away at the active free press that flourished during former president Boris Yeltsin's time in office, he said. While there are still some independent newspapers in Moscow and St. Petersburg, most of the citizens in the vast country get their news from TV. NTV, the last independent network in the country, was taken over in 2001 by the natural gas monopoly Gazprom, which is connected to the state. The new owners silenced the station's balanced coverage of the war in Chechnya. Now, all three of Russia's national TV networks are controlled by the Kremlin and Shuster thinks that the government will continue whittling away at the independent media, now moving against journalists working for regional television networks operating in places like the town of Beslan. A government deputy has proposed new legislation that aims to restrict journalists covering breaking stories, like the Beslan school hostage-taking last fall that left more than 350 people dead, almost half of them children. The argument is that such events are too upsetting for viewers and if the media cannot limit itself in its coverage, it is up to politicians to set limits. http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2005/04/12/Arts/russianjournalist050412.html?ref=rss Ingush president meets with EU delegation MAGAS. April 12 (Interfax) - Ingush President Murat Zyazikov met with a European Union delegation in Magas on Tuesday. The negotiations addressed the social and economic situation in Ingushetia and issues related to immigrants residing there. Zyazikov said that in 2002, there were over 200,000 refugees from Chechnya residing in Ingushetia along with Ingush refugees from the Prigorodny region of North Ossetia. "This created extra problems for the young republic," he said. "Transport was overloaded, as well as hospitals and education facilities," he said. There are now approximately 50,000 Chechen refugees and 12,000 immigrants from North Ossetia living in Ingushetia, the president said. He added that "currently, all refugees are returning to their former places of residence on a voluntary basis." Russians indicted for roles in jet blasts Tuesday, April 12th, 2005 MOSCOW (AP) - An airline employee and a ticket scalper were charged Tuesday in connection with the nearly simultaneous bombing of two Russian passenger jets last summer that killed all 90 people aboard the planes. The Aug. 24 bombings were the first in a series of terror attacks in August and September that killed more than 400 people and shocked the country. The ITAR-Tass news agency said Armen Arutyunian and Nikolai Korenkov entered partial pleas at a Moscow region court to the indictment, which charged them with aiding and abetting terrorism and commercial bribery. Two Chechen women are believed to have blown up a Sibir Airlines Tu-154 and a Volga-Aviaexpress Tu-134 after buying scalped tickets, allegedly from Arutyunian. Korenkov, a Sibir employee, allegedly accepted a $36 bribe for helping one of the women get on the flight after check-in had ended. Both planes took off from Moscow's Domodedovo airport. ITAR-Tass said Korenkov told the court he would refute the charges during the trial. "I doubt my guilt and during the submission of evidence I will explain why," Korenkov was quoted as saying by ITAR-Tass. Arutyunian pleaded partially guilty, the news agency reported, though it was unclear for which charges. A police officer has also been charged with negligence for detaining the two women then releasing them without inspecting their belongings. |