| Anti-Chechen
discrimination intensifies in Russia: rights activists (AFP) 31 July 2005 MOSCOW - The continuing conflict in Chechnya has intensified hardships for ethnic Chechens both in the republic and throughout Russia where anti-Chechen discrimination has risen sharply in the 11 months since the Beslan school hostage massacre, rights activists said on Sunday. “The Beslan terrorist act has played a major role in the rise in anti-Chechen feeling” in Russia, the respected Russian human rights organization Memorial said in a report distributed at a meeting here of leading Russian and European rights activists. The Beslan hostage crisis, which began on September 1 last year, ended two days later in the deaths of 318 hostages including 186 school children. Responsibility for the hostage-taking was claimed by Chechen rebels led by warlord Shamil Basayev. “The tragedy has been used to inflame interethnic hatred and revive enmity” in Chechnya and elsewhere in the Russian North Caucasus region, “in particular in the conflict between Ossets and Ingush,” the Memorial report stated. The report, “On the Situation of the Inhabitants of Chechnya in the Russian Federation” from June 2004 to June 2005 documented numerous incidents of discrimination against Chechens ranging from administrative harrassment to deprivation of employment, arbitrary arrest and physical abuse. The so-called international war on terrorism, it said, had been used by Russian law enforcement agencies as a pretext for actions directed at ethnic Chechens that were both illegal and immoral, the Memorial report said. “Residents of Chechnya do not have even the minimal level of security. And there are today no alternative possibilities for the inhabitants of Chechnya to live elsewhere on Russian territory.” The conference, organized to discuss the overall human rights situation in Russia, was attended by the head of Memorial, Sergei Kovalyev, the head of the Moscow Helsinki group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, and the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, among others. The Russian government’s two chief human rights officials, Ella Pamfilova and Vladimir Lukin, had been scheduled to attend but announced at the last minute that they would not be present. eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 29/7/2005 Brute force against refugees The dwellers of several temporary accommodation points in Grozny's Staropromyslovskii district obstructed a road to the centre of the Chechen capital in the morning on 29 July. The public meeting that largely consisted of women demanded that a young man abducted from a temporary accommodation point on the night of 28 July by armed people in camouflage uniforms and masks should be immediately released, Caucasian Knot's correspondent says. "At about 9.00 pm last night armed people in masks coming in three UAZ vehicles and a Zhiguli car without registration number plates broke into a room on the second floor of a temporary accommodation point in Koltsov St in the Staropromyslovskii district and brought away Ilias Azimov, b. 1985, without indicating the destination," a public meeting participant said. "In doing so, the attackers cruelly beaten the young man's mother and several more people who tried to interfere. They behaved extremely rudely and aggressively. They did not let anyone go out of their rooms and threatened shooting anyone who would interfere." "In the morning, the refugees living in the four temporary accommodation points in Koltsov St, mostly women and children, blocked the road near the Zagriazhskii community. Our main demand was finding and returning the abducted man. In a while, police officers came here who tried to disperse us. They were shooting randomly in the air and under the meeting's feet, beat one young man with the butts of their weapons, and pushed people with vehicles. Luckily, no one suffered really seriously, but some women lost consciousness and were taken to hospital," the interlocutor said. According to her, the people were driven to the roadside. Next, the chief of the Staropromyslovskii District Division of Internal Affairs and representatives of the military commandant's office came there. "They promised us to look into the matter, but the people do not believe. Many refugees assume to go back to Ingushetia in protest, like Borozdinovskaia residents did going to Dagestan. People are simply tired of all this abuse and hopelessness," the woman added. "We are told Azimov is charged with murder, but that's all rot and no one believes this," she continued. "This was a very decent young man and besides, he had a leg disease. Yesterday we had information he was kept in the Staropromyslovskii District Division of Internal Affairs, and now they say Ilias has been brought away to the Shatoi district where he comes from. We hope they will let him go. If this does not happen, our protest action will continue." The people who abducted Ilias Azimov are officers of the Staropromyslovskii DDIA. This is what the abducted man's relatives told a correspondent of the Information Centre of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. They say they were able to track down the abductors. The relatives say the law enforcement agents delivered Ilias Azimov to the Staropromyslovskii DDIA premises. Later the same day, Ilias's parents addressed the police station with a demand of releasing Azimov who has a serious disease. However, the police refused to talk to them advising that they should apply to the DDIA on the next day. However, when this morning the man's relatives applied to the police, they were told detainee Ilias Azimov had been moved to the Itum-Kali district. eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 29/7/2005 Chechnya struck with TB Chechnya's health professionals are concerned about a dramatic increase in the number of people with lung diseases. More than 18,000 people are registered to have tuberculosis in Chechnya presently, according to the republican Health Ministry's information. This figure continues to grow. "The number of people with TB in the republic has grown significantly over the past few years. This figure is 18,000 according to official information alone. About 3,000 are children. As a matter of fact, the figure is much higher. After all, one person with TB can infect several dozen people. The trouble is also that we have no conditions and opportunities to carry out preventive activities, reveal this disease in early stages, and so on, because there is no required base, including technical," a worker with the republican Health Ministry told Caucasian Knot's correspondent in an interview. "The war-stricken republic where the overwhelming majority of the population live below the poverty line creates favourable conditions for this type of disease to spread. After all, it is not without reason that TB is called the 'poor man's disease.' A person with TB needs good food, fruit, vegetables, but by far not everyone can afford this presently. Many citizens do not even know that they are ill and come to doctors only when the disease is in the stage of destroying their lungs. Unless urgent measures are taken to combat this disease, it may be too late soon," he thinks. "The situation will just be out of control." Author: Sultan Abubakarov, CK correspondent August 2nd 2005 · Prague Watchdog Commander recognizes army's participation in kidnappings By Ruslan Isayev URUS-MARTAN, Chechnya - A fortnight ago the relatives of kidnap victims met with Aleksandr Kayak, military commander of the Urus-Martanovsky district, in the district administration offices. The relatives blame the disappearances on the military. As reported by an employee of the human rights organization Memorial, who was present at the meeting, the commander implied that the crimes had been committed by soldiers. "The victims were subjected to torture, and some did not survive. Then the military found out that they were innocent. But what soldier is going to confess to an illegal killing?” Aleksandr Kayak then added that this information was not to be made public, which caused some participants to leave the meeting in protest. Isa Khutsayev, the father of two abducted sons, believes that authorities are ignoring them and are not trying to help in their search. "They openly show their unwillingness to help in finding people. The meeting and the commander’s words confirm this". Meanwhile, the kidnappings continue. Only two days before the meeting, local resident Islam Mamatsuyev was kidnapped in Urus-Martan. His body was discovered after several days near a cemetery on the outskirts of Urus-Martan. Translated by Mindaugas Kojelis. eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 30/7/2005 Protest against searches Dwellers of the Zagriazki temporary accommodation point for refugees held a public meeting in front of the local administration building earlier today. They claimed police officers had conducted searches in their flats two times earlier that week. In doing so, they were shooting randomly and beat several women and children. Besides, they say a person suspected of assistance to mojahideens was detained. Zagriazki dwellers demanded that the authorities should punish those guilty of abuse and release the detainee, Radio Liberty says. Source: International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Date: 02 Aug 2005 Two years without news of ICRC staff member abducted in Chechnya Geneva(ICRC) – The office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Groznyis suspending its work today for one day. It has been two years since Usman Saidaliev, one of the ICRC's employees in Chechnya, disappeared. Usman Saidaliev was abducted from his home in the villageof Novy-Engenoyby unidentified armed and masked men during the night of 2 August 2003. 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 Usman's fate, but with no results up to now. The ICRC is continuing to search for information about his abduction. For further information, please contact: Anastasia Isyuk, ICRC Moscow, tel.: +7 095 926 54 26 or +7 903 545 35 34 Annick Bouvier, ICRC Geneva, tel. + 41 22 730 24 58 or + 41 79 217 32 24 or visit our website: www.icrc.org Red Cross Stops Work in Chechnya to Mark Employee's Kidnapping 02.08.2005 MosNews The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in Chechnya stopped its work for one day on Tuesday to mark the kidnapping of its employee Usman Saidaliyev two years ago. The Red Cross "has repeatedly told the authorities about the necessity to clear up Usman's fate, but so far it has had no result," a Moscow office employee Anastasia Isyuk was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. Saidaliyev was kidnapped on Aug. 2, 2003 in his own house in the Chechen village of Novy Engenoi where he lived with his wife and child. Masked men in camouflage reportedly took the 41-year-old employee of the Red Cross office, where he had worked for two years. In 2003, he was a secretary of the economic security department. Saidaliyev's colleagues say he received no threats on the eve of the kidnapping. They have no idea who could have taken him. According to unconfirmed reports, in 2002, two drivers of the Chechen Red Cross mission were kidnapped but released three days later. Mosnews.com August 3, 2005 Beslan Mothers Do Not Want Putin to Visit Siege Commemorations The relatives of victims of last September's Beslan school siege do not want to see President Vladimir Putin or any high-ranking officials at the ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the tragedy, the head of the Beslan Mothers committee Susanna Dudiyeva told Ekho Moskvy radio station. "We would not like to see at the memorial events those whose professional or military duty was to save the children and who failed to fulfill their task due to their incompetence and lack of responsibility," Dudiyeva said in an interview. "Before seeing Putin here, we wanted to meet him in a different place, we have a lot to discuss with him. We asked him to receive us more than once. Now no one is waiting for him at the school," she went on. Dudiyeva also said that the victims' families objected to the presence of those with whom the hostage-takers had wanted talks, namely former North Ossetian President Aleksandr Dzasokhov, Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, presidential aide Aslanbek Aslakhanov and former Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo. "Rushailo must not think that he took a back seat (after leaving the ministerial post). They (hostage-takers) were calling for Rushailo but not for (children's doctor Leonid) Roshal to come to the school," she said. Federal Security Service Director Nikolay Patrushev, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, former North Ossetian security chief Valeriy Andreyev and some other people are also not wanted by the Beslan Mothers, Dudiyeva said. "They did virtually nothing, and what they did was unsatisfactory. We saw the results. We do not want to see those people in Beslan. Our children were waiting for them, but we are not," she said. The commemorative events will take place in Beslan on Sept. 1-3. eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 2/8/2005 Victims want to know more The case of Nurpashi Kulayev charged with involvement in the attack on school No 1 in Beslan continued to be heard in Vladikavkaz today. One more victim of the terrorist act, 32-year-old Marina Zhukayev who had all that time been connected to a medical ventilation apparatus in a Vladikavkaz hospital, was learnt to have died before the sitting began. Two of the victims questioned today told the court they thought the explosion had occurred not inside the gymnasium, but outside it. Irina Dzutsev said the blast had thrown her away from the window to the centre of the gymnasium. Approximately the same happened to Fatima Gutiyev. "The explosives were hanging right over me, so if they had detonated, I would have been left without my head," Fatima said. Victim Zemphira Agayev who was taken hostage together with her nine-year-old son confirmed the version that weapons had been in the school before the seizure. Under the floor in the school lobby, Zemphira saw a "huge pile of weapons guarded by a man with a scar. There were long and short pale-green boxes." Zemphira's son, Georgii, was killed, but Zemphira continues to believe her son is alive. "Many think we are all crazy here, but I am sane. I know how they did all that (DNA examination) and I haven't seen my son dead." This is how Zemphira described the moment of the onslaught on the school: "I came to myself after the second explosion in the gymnasium, everything was quiet. No one was rescuing us. Then, in a couple of minutes, it became so hot in the gymnasium, it seemed we were roasted. Then someone carried me out. Well, basically, but for the militia, a lot more would have been killed there." Today's court hearing has caused a lot of questions regarding the right of victims to ask questions that are not directly related to the Kulayev case. Victims think many questions were turned down unjustly by the chief justice at the previous sitting. Defence lawyer Taimuraz Chejemov tries to protect victims' rights and he receives support from Beslan residents. "I am a 2nd category invalid after Beslan and it was difficult for me to come here. I didn't see Kulayev in the school and they don't let me speak about those I saw," Irina Dzutsev said at the trial. The next hearing of the Beslan terrorist act case will take place on 4 August. Author: Alan Tskhurbayev, CK correspondent http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/engnews/id/837783.html eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 2/8/2005 Beslan tragedy triggers trumped-up cases Human rights defenders in Russia know about 23 Muslims detained under trumped-up charges of Islamic extremism. This is what Svetlana Gannushkina, Vitalii Ponomariov, and Elena Riabinina, representatives of the Human Rights Centre Memorial and the Civil Assistance Committee for Aid to Refugees, said at a press conference in the Independent Press Centre in Moscow earlier today. The detainees are mostly Russian citizens and 10-15% of them are natives of Muslim states of the former Soviet Union. The campaign for fabricated criminal cases of Islamic extremism became large-scale in autumn last year after the tragedy in Beslan. There are also lots of criminal cases against Muslims with drugs, weapons or explosives planted on them. This is what, for example, happened to Mansur Shangereyev in Astrakhan, according to Elena Riabinina of Civil Assistance. Svetlana Gannushkina, leader of the Migration and Law Network at the HRC Memorial, said she had raised the issue of fabricated criminal cases against Chechens and regarding Islamic extremism at recent meetings with Vladimir Putin. "I regret to see that the president of our huge country divides Russian citizens into 'ours' and 'not ours,'" Gannushkina said speaking about last meeting with the president in the Kremlin on 20 July. She quoted an example when they had talked about crimes of the Russian military against civilians. Putin said, "But what they are doing there, locals? Here, yesterday they killed a police officer, not ours, a Chechen." "Vladimir Vladimirovich, Chechen police officers are our police officers," retorted Gannushkina. "But they were running with submachine guns about mountains just yesterday," objected the president. "It was Kadyrov's Heroes of Russia running about mountains," the human rights defender told journalists in the Independent Press Centre. Meanwhile, police officers in Chechnya are kamikazes, in her opinion. They are trying to protect local residents from the unlawful actions of all parties to the armed conflict. Ismagil-khazrat Shangereyev, director of the Islamic Human Rights Centre who attended the press conference, told Caucasian Knot about the persecution of his brother Mansur in Astrakhan. Last year in summer, Mansur Shangereyev came forward in support of imam Rastiam-khazrat Kinzhiliyev who was disagreeable to Astrakhan regional mufti Nazymbek Iliazov. Earlier this year, a number of regional publications accused Mansur of Wahhabism. A criminal case under a charge of fraud was opened against him on 14 March 2005. While conducting a search of Mansur Shangereyev's place in connection with the fraud case on 21 March, police officers "found" a grenade allegedly stored in a felt boot in the entrance hall, two packets with cannabis, "Wahhabi-type" literature and video cassettes featuring an attack by Chechen rebels on a column of federal troops. Ismagil-khazrat thinks all that was planted on his brother. Mansur Shangereyev has since been in custody. There are about 50 more similar cases in Astrakhan, according to the Islamic Human Rights Centre director. Vitalii Ponomariov of the Human Rights Centre Memorial said a person risks to be seized at the exit from a mosque and detained for five days which is enough to beat any confession out of one. Besides, "production targets" are imposed on imams with regard to turning up extremism suspects. Quoting the president's utterances, Gannushkina thinks it obvious that there are instructions as to the fabrication of Islamic extremism cases. Author: Vyacheslav Feraposhkin, CK correspondent DAWN - the Internet Edition August 3, 2005 Wednesday Moscow ‘pursuing’ Muslims: HR body MOSCOW, Aug 2: A human rights group accused Russia’s authorities on Tuesday of using their campaign against terrorism as a pretext for an illegal and politicized pursuit of Muslims. “This campaign has either been initiated from the top, or it is a campaign that people have understood they are supposed to carry out,” Svetlana Ganushkina, a campaigner with the human rights organisation Memorial, said at a news conference. Memorial, which was established in the last years of the Soviet Union to uncover the mass abuses that took place under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, said it had compiled numerous dossiers on Muslims who had been unfairly treated. “We are currently involved in 23 judicial inquiries concerning 81 people, all of them Muslims officially pursued for extremist or terrorist activities, but all the cases have political subtexts,” Vitaly Ponomarev, director of Memorial’s Central Asia programme, said. Russia has been engaged in a campaign against separatists in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region of Chechnya since 1999, when it moved in to restore control there. The two sides earlier fought a devastating civil war between 1994 and 1996. Muslims in Russia are sometimes imprisoned for up to eight years for membership of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a radical group with offices in London that advocates setting up an Islamic state in Central Asia by peaceful means, Ponamarev said. Ganushina also condemned the Russian authorities’ detention of 14 Uzbeks on June 18 on suspicion of involvement in the bloody events that shook the eastern Uzbek province of Andijan in May. “These people are still in detention and there was no document permitting their arrest for three weeks... Too often innocent people are found among the victims of the fight against terrorism in Russia,” she said. Uzbek authorities have said that they moved in to retake control after an insurrection by armed extremists on May 13 in Andijan, while human rights campaigners have said security forces opened fire on hundreds of unarmed civilians who held anti-government protests in the town. There are 20 million Muslims in Russia, according to official estimates, most of them in the North Caucasus as well as in the provinces of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. — AFP. |