Czech
doctors taking away Chechen children
The
doctors are shoving pork at the Chechen woman, who got exhausted after
a difficult childbirth, and making her eat against her will. She turns
away form the food that she despises. «My belief does not allow
me to eat pork», she tries to explain to the persistent doctors.
And in response she hears: «You Chechens are worse than pigs».
All around the world people in doctor’s smocks are supposed
to bring hope, and here they are like jail guards and remind more
of SS labs in concentration camps of the WW II or at best the guardians
of the dissidents in Russian psycho wards of the Brezhnev times.
This is how gloomy and how terrifying another conversation with Chechen
refugees in the Czech Republic was. We contacted them hoping that
after our most recent publication
something would change in the distress they were in.
From another conversation we found out that residents of the Vysni
Lhoty refugee camp are afraid of the local doctors more than they
are afraid of the police. It went even as far as openly fearing that
these wardens in white smocks have something to do with some doubtful
experimental lab. In any case, it can’t be ruled out if you
listen to the refugees. How else would you explain the fact that they
add some medicine to their tea, after which people become drowsy and
their movements become sluggish, as many people have witnessed. After
taking that medicine they can’t concentrate on anything specific.
A few days ago they took away a nine-month-young child from a family
from Starye Atagi. The child had a little burn on his skin, but he
was already recovering and the wound was posing no danger at all.
But the child was seized by force, and now the parents are going crazy.
They had to use their last savings and hire an attorney to find out
what happened to the child. The attorney could not get any intelligible
answer on the child’s whereabouts from the doctors either. Only
after persistent demands and threats of legal proceedings it turned
out that the child had been «quarantined» and now the
access to the child is totally forbidden. Medical diagnosis is out
of question, since no one will ever see any written medical report.
A few days ago Yuze from Georgia (he totally refused to reveal his
last name), who almost went blind, contacted the local branch of the
Red Cross with the hope to get assistance. Instead of helping him,
he was placed at the local police station for three days.
Even for the slightest involuntary violation, even if you look at
a policeman a little but longer, you get «locked up» in
a hospital, where they give you one strange injection a week, which
the refugees gave the name of «Czech penicillin». But
no one really knows what kind of forcibly injected medicine it is.
Kavkaz Center reporter was trying to find out even some information
about that mysterious facility and the system of moving the emigrants
in that state. It turned out that this is a reception and distribution
facility, where the newly arrived refugees stay for three weeks (unless
they get intercepted by the «doctors» who use totally
healthy people to work off the funds that they receive from the international
organizations, and hold the people with no proper care and without
creating normal conditions that would include normal food). Then the
people get sent to other 7-8 camps, where they may spend years waiting
for their residence permits. But even there the conditions are no
different from the conditions in the reception and distribution facility.
You can only buy two packs of cigarettes on the funds earmarked for
each person on a weekly basis. Mass starvation is the main problem
of the refugees in Czech Republic. People have nothing to eat, while
being right in the center of democratic Europe!?
Currently there are up to five thousand people living in the distribution
facility, one thousand of which are Chechens.
Driven to the limit by the Gestapo conditions, the refugees have made
several attempts to reach the Helsinki Group and the International
Red Cross over the phone, but again they were told to go to the police.
There were two written messages to the central office of the BBC,
but no reaction has followed so far.
People cannot understand such a hateful attitude of the Czech authorities
and the personnel of the camps. Either they still have the year of
1968 (Soviet invasion) in their memories, or it’s something
else. But what do Chechens or other natives of the Northern Caucasus
have to do with it? It would be logical to be raising a claim against
Russia, whose interests they are trying to please by harassing women
and children.
Meanwhile, these poor fellows, who left their homeland against their
will, are speaking well of Poland, where the attitude towards the
refugees is friendly and humane. In Poland you can feel compassion
and understanding of the tragedy of the people who fled the Kremlin’s
terror.
Vakha Hasanov,
2003-08-30 12:35:55