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The Holiday of the Victory, Stained with the Chechen Blood The value of the victory over the aggressor, who has intruded in your country and imposes orders alien to you, is great. Irrespective of a nationality, in the USSR the victory over fascist Germany was perceived as the victory of all peoples of the Soviet Union . They sacrificed their best sons and daughters for the sake of the victory. This victory was a symbol of unity of the Soviet Union , but from time to time, some "persons" ascribed the common victory only to the Russian people. Superfluous reminding of it from "persons" of the Russian nationality sounded as a reproach to other peoples, though nobody diminished the importance of the Russian people in this victory. And today, on the eve of the 60 th anniversary of the victory over fascist Germany , all the same there has been some "person" at the post of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation-Russia, who, nevertheless, has decided to sadden the celebratory mood. The minister has declared before the veterans of the Second World War, "We have won, because, as commander Suvorov used to say, we are Russians!" Whether those, whom the Kremlin invites to celebrating of the 60-th anniversary of the victory over fascism, agree with it? In fact, the victory was common for everybody, and it was reached by common efforts, not only by the peoples of the USSR , but also, undoubtedly, at participation of he forces of the coalition - the countries of the West! The statement of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation-Russia Ivanov looks like a call to the whole West and all peoples from the USSR , who also considers the victory over fascism to be their victory. The victory was used by the Kremlin Bolsheviks for strengthening of their imperial authority. Moscow illegally occupied the Baltic and the East Europe , banished many peoples to Siberia and Kazakhstan , where more than half of them were killed. All this was happening in 1944-1945, under the covering of the triumph of the victory over fascist Germany . And today the new "democratic" Russian Federation-Russia also grasps territories; a quarter of one million people are killed by it as the result of aggression against the Chechen state; hundred thousands of Chechens are in absolutely intolerable conditions of life. The whole Chechen Republic is destroyed and transformed into a concentration camp. Thousand and thousand refugees search for rescue abroad, but here again their rights are restrained. On the eve of the 60-th anniversary of the Victory over fascism 7 women and 12 small children with them from the Chechen Republic starve for the 10-th day. They escaped from the "democratic" authority of the Kremlin and starve, lying on the concrete floor in the building of the Management of the Supreme Commissioner of the United Nations in Tbilisi . Women and children demand observance of their elementary rights. But they are refused of it, they are offended and threatened to apply force against them! Seven women and 12 children are compelled to ask for help from the world. It is symbolical, that all this takes place in the United Nations office in Georgia . Women and children have already appealed to all heads of the states of the world. They ask Vatican , and all the international organizations to take urgent measures against the arbitrariness of the Kremlin. They ask to observe their refugees rights. They do not eat for the tenth day, and they sleep on a cement floor. The whole world is silent for the tenth day. Whether the Day of Victory will manage to cover the crimes of the Kremlin today, as it was 60 years ago? Whether the world has not changed for this time? Ahyad Idigov, The Head of the Committee of External Relations of the Parliament of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria. Plenipotentiary of the Parliament of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria abroad SIA "Chechenpress" 08.05.05 http://www.chechenpress.co.uk/english/news/2005/05/08/09.shtml Human Rights Watch Russia: Visiting Leaders Should Be Firm on Rights (Moscow, May 7, 2005)-U.S. President George W. Bush and EU leaders should voice concern about human rights violations in Russia during their upcoming summits in Moscow, Human Rights Watch said today. The summits will take place against a background of continuing government abuses in Chechnya and a rollback of civic freedoms throughout Russia. On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with Bush; on Tuesday, he will hold a summit meeting with EU leaders. The EU-Russia summit is widely expected to conclude long-running negotiations with an agreement on the European Union's strategic partnership with Russia that will define relations between the two for many years ahead. "The summits are a rare opportunity for leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to speak out in a unified voice," said Rachel Denber, acting Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Their individual political agendas must not silence their common concern about the rollback of human rights in Russia." In the past year, the Russian government has enacted new measures that eliminate direct elections of parliamentary candidates and empower the president to appoint regional governors. The measures follow the government' s elimination of Russia's independent broadcast media, its marginalization of the political opposition, and President Putin's threats against nongovernmental organizations. In Chechnya, where the armed conflict is now in its sixth year, government forces as well as Chechen rebels continue to commit serious human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war. In March, Human Rights Watch published a report concluding that the pattern of enforced disappearances by the government in Chechnya had become so widespread and systematic as to constitute a crime against humanity. Russian authorities deny any responsibility or involvement in "disappearances" and remain unwilling to bringing perpetrators to justice. Following the government clampdown on independent media during Putin's first term as president, nongovernmental organizations have been a key purveyor of independent information on abuses committed in Chechnya. Now the Kremlin appears to be harassing NGOs that monitor abuses in Chechnya or encourage public debate about the situation there. In several cases the authorities threaten to prosecute such organizations for "extremism," in others, NGO leaders were the targets of intimidation by law enforcement agents. "The EU and the U.S. need to convey deep concern about the abuses in Chechnya and the general setbacks in civic freedoms in Russia," said Denber. "They should also seek a commitment from the Russian government that it will end the harassment and attacks on NGOs in the northern Caucasus." The summits come a month after the European Union and the United States declined to introduce a resolution on human rights abuses in Chechnya at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. "The U.S. and EU have a shared interest in ending abuses in Russia and encouraging accountability for those abuses. They also share a duty to protect human rights groups working in the region," said Denber. __________________________________________ International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights Wickenburggasse 14/7 A-1080 Vienna Tel. +43-1-408 88 22 Fax: +43-1-408 88 22 ext. 50 Web: http://www.ihf-hr.org ______________________________________ Statement of the Chechen envoy with regard to the Moscow celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Victory Day Chechenpress, Department of Government Information, 09.05.05 "The participation of Western leaders in the activities organized by the Putin regime constitutes a defamation of the memory of the people killed in the war against Fascism", Special Envoy of the ChRI President Ahmed Zakayev said today. - "The Chechens salute the courageous and consequent position of the leaders of the Baltic countries and Georgia, who refused to participate in the Moscow farce." "Today the Russian army is committing a genocide of the Chechen people, which does not take a second place with respect to cruelty and scale after the horrors of the Nazi occupation in any country during WW2. While pronouncing elevated words about the victory over barbarism and tyranny of 60 years ago, the Western politicians pretend not to notice what is happening today. This is the top of cynicism and hypocrisy, a classical example of appeasement towards an aggressor. Speaking in Riga on his way to Moscow, the President of the USA, George Bush, made another statement about the universality of freedom and human rights. It would have been very honest if he had made the reservation: "but all this doesn't apply to the Chechens". In that case his words would have been more in accordance with the Orwellian position of the West with respect to the tragedy of the Chechen people. When speaking about the situation of Russians in Latvia, Mr. Bush for some reason forgot about the situation of Chechens and other Caucasian peoples in Russia - isn't this a manifestation of double standards?" Contact: +44 774 756 0735 http://www.chechenpress.com/events/2005/05/09/01.shtml [My unauthorized translation] eng.kavkaz.memo.ru Caucasian Knot 6/5/2005 Women protest against abuse Several dozen women looking for their missing relatives held a picket before the building of the Committee on the Ensuring of the Constitutional Rights of Citizens of the Chechen Republic. Women from various districts of Chechnya held photos of their relatives abducted or brought away at various times in the process of various "special activities" by officers of various law enforcement and security agencies. The picketers demanded that the authorities should establish the whereabouts of the missing or find their bodies. "We have come here more than once," Satsita, a 55-year-old resident of Chechnya's Grozny district, told Caucasian Knot. "A common grief joins us: the disappearance without trace of our sons, husbands and brothers taken away by the military at various times." "In many cases, officials at military commandant's offices, prosecutor's offices or district police divisions refuse to accept our statements of abductions. They recommend we should apply to another agency or invent various pretexts. We want to know where our relatives are, who and for what detained them and what they are charged with. If they are no longer alive, let them return their bodies for us to be able to bury them in the due manner," she says. Meanwhile, new information is received about abductions in Chechnya. Four local residents, including two women, have been abducted in the past 48 hours, a source at Chechnya's law enforcement agencies told Caucasian Knot. Abductions were registered in Grozny and in the Naurskaia district in the north of Chechnya. According to the source, one woman, presumably resident in the Achkhoi-Martan district, was abducted in Grozny's Zavodskoi district on 5 May by people in masks and camouflage uniforms, armed with automatic weapons. A group of people in military uniforms broke into a room in a Grozny temporary accommodation point and brought away a young man living there on the night of 5 May. A group of unidentified persons in military uniforms detained in the street a resident of Grozny's Staropromyslovskii district and abducted her in the evening on 4 May. In the morning on the same day, people in camouflage uniforms abducted a local resident from Kalinovskaia, Naurskaia district. http://friendly.narod.ru/2005-2/info1274.htm Russian-Chechen Friendship Society 05.05.2005 Another abduction in the Shatoi district Daughter-in-law of the former Head admisnitration of the Shatoi district was taken away by uknown armed persons about 3 PM from inhabitated house in the village of Syuzhi of the Shatoi district. It's known that the woman is around 40 years old. Details about this are being collected. (Our correspondent) The Washington Post Chechen Activist Groups Feel Pressure From Russia Rights Leaders Say Kremlin Trying to Stifle Dissent on Conflict By Peter Finn Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, May 8, 2005; A22 NIZHNY NOVGOROD, Russia -- When four security service officers arrived at the offices of a prominent human rights group here on Jan. 20, they demanded to see back issues of the group's monthly newspaper. Employees showed the officers to what passed for an archive, a pile of dusty papers on the floor. The agents, from the FSB, the domestic successor of the KGB, gathered up copies to take away. They also seized records of the group, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, including the closely guarded names and addresses of people who write articles for the paper from the war-torn republic of Chechnya, according to Stanislav Dmitrievsky, co-chair of the organization. In a case that has frightened Russia's human rights activists, authorities say they are investigating whether the group incited hatred between national groups by publishing statements by Chechen separatist leaders in its newspaper. The organization's eight employees in this Volga River city, 250 miles east of Moscow, face up to four years in prison if they are ultimately brought to court and convicted. Activists nationwide fear that the government, which insists the situation is normalizing in Chechnya, is determined to shut down alternative points of view on the conflict there, beginning with smaller, regional groups such as the friendship society. "There is a de facto information blockade on Chechnya," said Tatiana Lokshina, program director at the Moscow Helsinki Group, one of the country's best-known human rights organizations. "These are groups that undermine the blockade, and so they become dangerous, and the state is trying to get rid of them." Many of the groups now feeling pressure from the government operate with foreign funding. The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society is entirely underwritten by the European Union, the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. Another group, the Chechen Committee for National Salvation, which is funded by the E.U. and the NED, went on trial Wednesday in Ingushetia, a Russian republic bordering Chechnya, on charges of disseminating extremist information in its press releases. Official hostility to Russia's emerging collection of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) found its most prominent _expression in President Vladimir Putin's state of the nation address last year. "Far from all of them are geared towards defending people's real interests," Putin said. "For some of these organizations, the priority is rather different -- obtaining funding from influential foreign or domestic foundations. For others it is servicing dubious group and commercial interests." Russian officials defend their probes, saying human rights groups have nothing to fear if they obey the law. "We think this material incites national hatred between Russian and Chechens," said Maxim Dudnik, an investigator at the Nizhny Novgorod prosecutor's office. "I wouldn't say this case is politically motivated. Organizations have to follow the criminal code of the Russian federation; no one has yet canceled this code." The Nizhny Novgorod group's alleged offense was to publish a March 2004 appeal to the European Parliament by Aslan Maskhadov, the separatist leader who was killed in Chechnya in March during an operation by Russian special forces. Maskhadov, who served briefly as president of Chechnya in the 1990s (*), asked the Parliament to recognize the conflict as "genocide," invoking its earlier declaration that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's forced deportation of Chechens during World War II was an act of genocide. First published on a Chechen Web site, Maskhadov's appeal drew little attention from the news media. It was picked up by the BBC's monitoring service, two news agencies and the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society's monthly newspaper, Pravo-Zashchita, or Human Rights Defender. The European Parliament never acted on Maskhadov's rhetorically heated appeal, which coupled talk of peace with attacks on what he called the "criminal madness of the bloody Kremlin regime." (**) At first, the FSB said the article and another published statement by one of Maskhadov's deputies appeared to violate Russia's counterterrorism laws banning extremist material. That allegation was dropped, and now the group is being investigated for "inciting hatred between nationalities." "Russians are entitled to the opinions of both sides in Chechnya," said Dmitrievsky, 39, whose group also runs humanitarian and educational programs. "But we don't publish calls for hatred between national groups." Monitoring human rights abuses in the North Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya, is a dangerous pursuit. The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights has documented 13 killings of human rights defenders there since 1999, when war broke out in the breakaway republic for a second time. The killings included four field correspondents for the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. In the months since the FSB hauled away the society's records in January, all six of its correspondents in Chechnya have been interviewed; one quit following his interrogation, Dmitrievsky said. Recently, one of the group's officers, Oksana Chelysheva, 37, was targeted by a leaflet campaign in her Nizhny Novgorod neighborhood. The leaflets, which contained Chelysheva's name and address, said: "There are beasts among us. They look like normal law-abiding citizens, but support terrorist activities." It was signed by the previously unknown Young Patriotic Front. Prosecutors said they were investigating the leaflets. The trial of the Chechen Committee for National Salvation grows out of an accusation in its press releases that Russian forces were involved in the killing and abductions of civilians in Chechnya. The committee, based in Ingushetia, was acquitted of the same charges last October, but in February, the republic's Supreme Court ordered a retrial, urging the lower court to return a "lawful and grounded ruling." The head of the organization, Ruslan Badalov, would face up to five years in prison and the group could be closed if the court found the material to be extremist. "It was a political order, because the accusations are absurd," said Badalov, 49, pointing to the first acquittal and an analysis by the Independent Council of Legal Experts in Moscow, which said the press releases did not violate the law. "It's fantasy on their part. But they want to close us." In a letter produced in court during the first trial, the FSB wrote to prosecutors that it "possesses information that these international NGOs are used by the governments of foreign countries for collecting and disseminating slanted information about the policy of the federal government in the Northern Caucasus. . . . Their aim is to discredit Russia in the eyes of the world community." Among the statements in the 12 press releases in question was one referring to the deaths of five people in Chechnya: "It is obvious that all of them have fallen victim to terrorist activity conducted by Russian security forces," according to the prosecutor's submission to the court. One human rights activist in Moscow described the releases as "sloppily written, but not criminal under the law." Prosecutors in Ingushetia did not respond to requests for interviews. The trial resumes on Tuesday. Human rights groups fear that these regional prosecutions are the opening moves in a campaign that could affect larger and more prestigious rights organizations such as the Moscow Helsinki Group and Memorial. "I think they can reach us sooner or later," said Oleg Orlov, a leader at Memorial. "A few years ago we would have said that what's happening to the Friendship Society could never happen. So today, if they are successful in suffocating regional organizations, we can easily be next." Dudnik, with the Nizhny Novgorod's prosecutor's office, said the European Union and other foreign donors "should be much more careful about who they are financing." Last year, the Friendship Society received approximately $120,000 from the E.U., $70,000 from the NED and $40,000 from Norway. In 2004, the Committee for National Salvation received about $130,000 from the E.U. and $45,000 from the NED. Dmitrievsky and other activists said Russian foundations and businesses generally did not underwrite human rights work, fearing it would be construed by the Kremlin as unwelcome political meddling. U.S. and European officials have expressed concern privately to Russian officials about the investigations, according to a Western diplomat in Moscow, but have not publicly criticized the prosecutors' actions, preferring to wait for final verdicts. "We review the reports they send out and they are not advocating violence," said John Squier, program officer for Russia and Ukraine at the Washington-based NED. "I am very concerned for their well-being." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050701233.html News AI Index: EUR 46/018/2005 Public Document Distrib: PG/SC To: Health Professionals From: Health and Human Rights Team Date: May 2005 MEDICAL ACTION UPDATE Ingushetia, Russian Federation: Doctors publicly branded as terrorists Summary: Fourteen women doctors in the Russian Republic of Ingushetia have repeatedly had their pictures and names distributed by the Russian authorities on posters, in the media and on the Internet. The women, all of whom reside in Ingushetia, and work for the International Medical Corps (IMC) were declared as "wanted on suspicion of their involvement in terrorist activities." The pictures were circulated on numerous occasions throughout 2004 and 2005, initially following the 6 February 2004 bomb attacks on the Moscow metro as well as after the September 2004 crisis in Beslan. Such exposure continued despite assurances from the Ministry of the Interior (MVD) of the Russian Federation in May 2004 to both the IMC and the doctors that the pictures would be withdrawn and not distributed any further. Update: The Nazran District Court of Ingushetia in December 2004 declared the actions of the MVD and the Main Department of Internal Affairs (GUVD) of Moscow to be illegal and demanded that all posters of the doctors should be removed and destroyed. Despite this, according to the IMC, the poster was seen again, at least on one occasion, in a public place in Moscow on 14 February 2005 among photographs of other wanted persons. Representatives from the IMC managed to take photographs of the poster and complained to the Ingush administration which led to a meeting with the President of Ingushetia. Subsequently, a meeting was arranged between the doctors and high level officials in Moscow, which took place on 4 March 2005 at the Duma. Present at the meeting were the Deputy Chair of the Federation Council, the Deputy Minister of the Interior, a representative of the Federal Security Services (FSB), a Federation Council Member, representatives from the Duma Committee on Human Rights and journalists. At the meeting, while acknowledging that the allegations against the doctors were unfounded, reportedly neither the MVD nor the FSB were prepared to take responsibility. However, both agreed to the demands of the Deputy Chair of the Federation Council that all the posters should be removed, including those from websites. Additionally, the MVD have since issued the doctors with picture ID cards stating that they have no criminal or "terrorist" associations. The MVD appealed to the Supreme Court of Ingushetia the decision of the Nazran District Court of Ingushetia of December 2004. On 10 March 2005 a judicial collegiate for civil cases of the Supreme Court of Ingushetia upheld the initial decision by the Nazran District Court. It seems unlikely that the MVD will make a further appeal. Separately, the doctors are seeking compensation for the moral harm suffered. No further action is necessary on this case. Thank you to all those who campaigned on behalf of the IMC doctors. Suicide bomber killed in Grozny planned to blow up police HQ 07.05.2005, 09.15 GROZNY, May 7 (Itar-Tass) - Chechen police are continuing the investigation of Friday's incident in Grozny. "The woman suicide bomber found and destroyed by servicemen from the Akhmat Kadyrov special task regiment planned to blow up the police headquarters in the Staropromyslovsky district," police told Itar-Tass. "In the first hours of the investigation we found out that the woman suicide bomber carrying a so-called shaheed's belt planned to enter the police headquarters and blow herself up," police said but did not reveal the source of this information. The search for the woman's accomplices is under way in Grozny. Before killing the woman, police asked her to surrender and remove the belt with explosives from her body. But she refused and threatened to blow herself up, after which she was killed. The explosion that followed did not hurt anyone, police said. This is the third woman suicide bomber killed in Chechnya in the last 24 hours. On Thursday, police killed two women suicide bombers and two field commanders in the settlement of Sernovoskoye. They were supposed to drive a KamAZ truck carrying more than 1.2 tonnes of explosives. Police detained the truck. A spokesman for the counter-terrorist operation staff in the North Caucasus, Major-General Ilya Shabalkin, said that the two bandits were directly subordinate to warlord Doka Umarov. The staff said the killed bandits were planning terrorist acts in Grozny during the Victory Day celebrations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.lenta.ru/news/2005/05/07/blast/ According to an employee of the Staropromyslovsky ROVD, an information entered into the district department, that a woman intends to commit a terrorist act. "As a result of operationally taken measures the ROVD employees got to the woman by her external attributes (signs)" [vichislili zhenshchinu po vneshnikh priznakam] - he said. The woman was waking on the street near the suburb of Katayama of the Staropromyslovsky district, when the policemen demanded her to stop, she run into them, said the ROVD policeman. "The policemen opened fire at the woman, being heavily wounded, she blew herself up" - they reported in the ROVD. As a result of this explosion no one suffered, besides the terrorist herself. According to the preliminary data, the terrorist female planned the act of terror against the Staropromyslovsky ROVD. Furthermore, the investigation does not exclude, that the woman intended to commit terrorist act against the republic's officials . Previously there was reported that the MVD of Chechnya got some information that the leaders of illegal armed units plan to commit a large terrorist act in Grozny on the 9th of May, with participation of women-suicides [smertnitsas]