Ekho Moskvy, 24 February 2004  [BBC Monitoring]

Russian human rights activists accuse West of turning blind eye to Chechnya

[No dateline, as received] The International Helsinki Group demands that the Kremlin annul the results of the Chechen presidential election in which Akhmad Kadyrov won, Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alekseyeva has told Ekho Moskvy radio.

A document to the above effect, which human rights activists had named "a peace petition", was submitted last night to the Russian ambassador in Austria, Aleksandr Golovin.

"Human rights activists are disappointed with the position of Western leaders in regard to the situation in Chechnya," Alekseyeva said. In her view, "there is a deal between European and US leaders on one side and our [Russian] government on the other side - to ignore Chechnya for the sake of keeping Russia an important ally in combating terrorism".

"They are turning a blind eye to what is happening in Chechnya for the sake of the joint fight against terrorism," Alekseyeva said. "However, there are special reasons for terrorism in Chechnya, those created by what our federal troops are doing there," she said.

She went on to add that "leaving the Chechen conflict alone is a big mistake on the part of Western states and our citizens".

[Passage omitted]

In addition, Alekseyeva said that the excuse [offered by the authorities] to ban the rally dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush people [in Moscow on 23 February] was "very silly - the alleged need to clear the snow, as if snow could not have been cleared half an hour earlier or later".

She said that "we had held rallies in memory of the Chechen deportation for many years now and it had never previously been banned".

Speaking about the hearing of the case of the detained rally participants by Moscow's Basmannyy court, Alekseyeva said that "usually all our law-enforcement bodies work in close cooperation". "I very much doubt it that the judge would say they [rights activists] had been detained unlawfully," she said.