Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: Chechen government had created "a climate of fear"
--bbc.co.uk/russian--
Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 05:17 GMT 09:17 MCK

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is the situation of human rights and the rule of law in the North Caucasus as "the most serious and complex" in the territories before the Council of Europe. The first conclusions of the PACE, contained in the draft resolution, which is scheduled to make in June to the summer session of the Assembly, relating to Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

As the authors of the report, which was based on the resolution, the Chechen government support "atmosphere of fear" in the country are continuing disappearance of opposition figures and human rights defenders, and courts ignore the abuse of law enforcement agencies. All this, according to a document, accompanied by the growth and development of the personality cult that is "a shameful phenomenon in democracy."

In Ingushetia, the report drew attention to the "disturbing increase in violence since 2009, while in Dagestan - in the quickening of the attacks, which leads, according to PACE, a tough and lawless actions of the militia. (cont...)

U.S. Statement on Terrorist Attack in Moscow
Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Chairman
Hon. Alcee L. Hastings, Co-Chairman
For Immediate Release www.csce.gov
March 29, 2010


"The architects of Russia’s North Caucasus policy don’t ride the metro, especially not at eight in the morning. These attacks targeted innocent working class people on their way to jobs and schools. If you improve security on these trains, the killers will simply find a softer target. While this attack hit Moscow, it serves as a cry for help to end the violence and poverty in Chechnya and neighboring regions that engender the desperation that makes these sorts of incidents more likely.”

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent agency of the Federal Government charged with monitoring compliance with the Helsinki Accords and advancing comprehensive security through promotion of human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental and military cooperation in 56 countries. The Commission consists of nine members from the U.S. Senate, nine from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce. (cont.)

Dagestani man identifies Moscow Metro bomber as his daughter
--theVoiceofRussia--
Apr 5, 2010 09:35 Moscow Time

A resident of Dagestan has identified the bomber that set off an explosive device at the Lubyanka Moscow Metro station a week ago as his daughter. The Moscow-based Kommersant daily reports that a secondary school teacher Rasul Magomedov has pointed out the fact in a written statement for the Dagestan Prosecutor’s Office. Magomedov says that his daughter Maryam Sharipova and her mother went to a Makhachkala marketplace a day before the March 28th terrorist attacks, and then she went to visit her friend and has since failed to return home. Magomedov’s relatives and other residents of their village identified the girl in the photos that were made public on the Internet. On Sunday blood specimens were taken from the teacher and his wife for DNA-testing. Rasul Magomedov described his daughter as a pious, although not a radically-minded person. She taught information science in the very same school where her parents have worked all their life. Maryam Sharipova’s brother Ilyas was earlier arrested on charges of illegal keeping of a hand grenade, abducting a person and involvement with illegal armed groups, but was acquitted on all points, save for the first one. Now that a week has passed since the Metro blasts, 81 victims of the acts of terror are still at Russian capital hospitals. According to the Emergencies Ministry, over 120 people were injured in the attacks on the Lubyanka and Park Kultury Moscow Metro stations, while the death toll has reached 40.

Tolstoy and Islam, Russia in Denial
28 March 2010, 17:55
--KavkazCenter--

West analysts drew attention to the fact that the Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, became a "nonperson" in Russia according to George Orwell. Mentioning his name is now a sign of political incorrectness in Russia.

The Moscow correspondent of Daily Telegraph Andrew Osborn in his report from Moscow said that Russia now is being accused of abandoning its literary past in case of the outstanding Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, because Russia ignores the 100-year anniversary of his death.

"Such emerged that the Kremlin has no plans to mark the centenary of Leo Tolstoy's death, and an acclaimed film of "Anna Karenina" has failed to find distributors", Andrew Osborn reports.

"The Kremlin has maintained a steely silence on the anniversary", the English journalist is surprised and continuing: "The director of a new film based on Tolstoy's masterpiece "Anna Karenina", starring top Russian actors, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station, he failed to find a distributor more than a year after it was made. "I do not understand", said the director.

Andrew Osborn notes that countries as disparate as Cuba and Mexico have already organized Tolstoy-related festivals this year ahead of the centenary of his death on Nov 20. New translations of Tolstoy's work are being published in Germany and the US.

"Dame Helen Mirren and Christoper Plummer were both nominated for Oscars for their starring roles in the acclaimed English-language film The Last Station, which examines the last two years of Tolstoy's life, and was released last month in Britain", Andrew Osborn reports in his report from Moscow.

It is to be mentioned that that in the end of January 2010, it became known that by a decision of a court in the Rostov region dated September 11, 2009, the writer Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, male, born in 1828, Russian, married, place of residence: Yasnaya Polyana, Shchekin district, Tula Region, was proclaimed extremist at an anti-extremist process in Taganrog.

The decision of a commission of experts placed in Internet, testified the extremist ideology of Leo Tolstoy, who aroused religious hatred according to Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, in particular in the following words:

"I convinced myself that the doctrine of the [Russian Orthodox] church is in theory a cunning and harmful deceit, and in practice a collection of the grossest superstitions and sorcery, which completely overlaps the whole meaning of the Christian teaching".

The Court ruled that this expression of Leo Tolstoy formed negative attitude to the Russian Orthodox Church and, based on this, the article citing this expression was proclaimed an extremist material".

It is to be mentioned that Tolstoy is not just an extremist, but an relapsed extremist.

In 1901, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, male, born in 1828, Russian, married, place of residence: Yasnaya Polyana, Shchekino district, Tula Region, have been alread formally convicted of seditious thoughts with regards to the Russian Orthodox Church, excommunicated and anathematized.

In addition, the tsarist, and then the Bolshevik and the current democratic authorities of Russia still carefully conceal the fact that Leo Tolstoy converted to Islam at the sunset of his life.

Meanwhile, just a few days ago Leo Tolstoy was proclaimed extremist in Russia by a court for the third time. On March 18, 2010, at a Kirov court in Yekaterinburg during one of the multiple anti-extremist processes that are currently taking place across Russia an expert on extremism Paul Suslonov testified:

"In the leaflets by Leo Tolstoy's "A preface to instructions to a soldier" and "Instructions to an officer", which were addressed soldiers, sergeants and officers, there direct calls to form a religious hatred against the Orthodox Church according to Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code".

Department of Monitoring,
Kavkaz Center

Russia Is Pressed for Data on Killing
By REUTERS
February 27, 2010

MOSCOW (Reuters) — A media rights watchdog on Saturday urged Russia to publish details of its investigation into the killing of a human rights worker after the Russian press reported that suspects had been identified.

The murder of the rights worker, Natalya Estemirova, in Chechnya, where she was a vocal critic of the Chechen leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, had prompted international condemnation.

“For seven months, authorities have been silent about their efforts to solve the brutal slaying of our colleague and we call on them now to further publicize their progress,” Nina Ognianova, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.

A Russian investigator said Thursday that the authorities knew who shot Ms. Estemirova but that they had been unable to arrest him because he was in hiding.

Rights Groups Condemn Illegal Detentions in Chechnya
February 9th, 2010
--theOTHERrussia.org--

The unlawful detention of three human rights advocates in Chechnya over the weekend is drawing severe criticism from international rights organizations, reports Kasparov.ru.

In a statement on Tuesday, Director Holly Cartner of Human Rights Watch in Europe and Central Asia said that the baseless detention of lawyers Dmitri Egoshin, Roman Veretennikov and Vadislav Sadykov of the Joint Mobile Group of Russian Non-Governmental Organizations should be properly investigated by the Russian authorities.

The three lawyers were detained without charge by regional Chechen security forces on February 7. After being illegally held for 15 hours, they were released on February 8 with no explanation of the basis for their detention. Security officials destroyed tape recordings confiscated from the rights advocates, who fear that their offices may also have been raided.

Cartner stressed the importance of bringing the offending officers to responsibility and of assuring safe working conditions for human rights advocates in Chechnya and the other volatile republics in Russia’s North Caucasus.

Referring to a January 23 statement by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Cartner said that “this arbitrary detention clearly demonstrates that the Chechen law enforcement agencies continue harassing human rights defenders despite Prime Minister Putin’s recent call for a healthy working environment for human rights groups.”

The rights organizations Amnesty International, Civil Rights Defenders and Front Line also issued statements condemning the incident.

The three detained lawyers meanwhile plan to file charges against the security officers in court.

The incident is a disturbing reminder of last year’s increase in violent persecution of human rights workers in the North Caucasus. Natalia Estemirova of the Memorial human rights organization was kidnapped and murdered in Chechnya in July, leading the organization to close its operations in the area. One month later, charity workers Zarema Sadulaeva and Umar Dzhabrailov were found dead in their car in the Chechen capital of Grozny. Domestic and international human rights groups have continually blamed the Russian authorities for allowing continued violence to endanger activists and reporters in the volatile area.

Violence Begets Violence: Russia and Chechnya
-wiki-

The Alkhan-Yurt massacre was the December 1999 incident in the village of Alkhan-Yurt near the Chechen capital Grozny involving Russian troops under command of general Vladimir Shamanov. The villagers claimed approximately 41 civilians were killed in the spree, while the human rights groups confirmed and documented 17 incidents of murder and three incidents of rape. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), it was not an isolated incident, as Russian troops have been systematically looting villages and towns under their control.

The Grozny safe corridor shooting incident happened on December 3, 1999, when about 40 people fleeing the besieged Chechen capital Grozny were allegedly killed by Russian policemen. According to accounts from survivors, a refugee convoy consisting of about 50 people in seven or eight passenger cars and one bus marked with white flags, was heading towards the border with the Russian republic of Ingushetia, when they approached a federal roadblock near the village of Goity. One survivor described masked OMON[1] troops opening fire with automatic rifles from their position in the nearby forest without warning. The bus exploded as bullets pierced its gas tank. After the shooting, Russian soldiers gave first aid and painkillers to the handful of survivors and brought them to the hospital in Sleptsovskaya, Ingushetia, where they were interviewed by journalists.

The Novye Aldi massacre was a February 5, 2000, incident in which Russian federal forces summarily executed at least 50 civilians in the Novye Aldi (Aldy) suburb of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. The killings occurred in the course of zachistka (a 'mopping-up' or cleansing operation), conducted several days after the end of the battle for the city. As a result of the killing spree up to 60 people were killed, numerous houses were burnt down, and civilian property was stolen by troops in an organized manner. The guilt of the Russian state in the Aldi murders was established by two judicial cases in the European Court of Human Rights several years later (Estamirov and Others v. Russia and Musayev, Labazanova and Magomadov v. Russia).

Komsomolskoye massacre occurred following the battle of Komsomolskoye of the Second Chechen War in March 2000, when large numbers of the Chechen rebel fighters were reportedly massacred by the Russian troops. Prominent in the incident was fate of the group of about 74 Chechen combatants who had surrendered on March 21, 2000 on the federal promise of amnesty, but almost all had either died or "disappeared" shortly after they were detained.

In the Staropromyslovski massacre Russian federal soldiers summarily executed at least 38 confirmed civilians during an apparent spree in Staropromyslovsky city district of Grozny, the Chechen capital, according to survivors and eyewitnesses. The killings went unpunished and publicily unacknowledged by the Russian authorities. In 2007, one case of a triple murder was ruled against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Mass Graves in Chechnya

Dozens of mass graves containing at least hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the beginning of the Chechen wars in 1994. As of June 2008, there are reported to be 57 registered sites of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International (AI), thousands of people are believed to be buried in unmarked graves with up to 5,000 civilians who disappeared since 1999 (the beginning of the Second Chechen War) remaining missing.[2] The largest mass grave to date was found in 2008 in the regional capital Grozny, containing some 800 bodies dating back from the First Chechen War in 1995. Russia's general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.

The photo is from the works of the great Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. The Chechenya Gorge.

Putin and his watchdogs in Caucasus are advertising every day through mass media, how they introduce order, how they bring peace to Caucasian peoples. In two previous recordings on the internet, at the same [site] where this recording will be [posted], you will watch how three long-range bombers drop bombs on outskirts of our villages. After that you will also watch the destructions, that were inflicted by their bombardment. And after that, our Mujahideen are sent by me into those places, in order to collect these remains of their "gifts".

These are ball bombs, they are banned everywhere in the world. This is a ball bomb, it is left after every bombardment, it is Putin's "gift" for the Chechen people. This was collected in the territory of Nokhchicho (AKA Chechnya/Ichkeria), therefore I am elaborating, saying "Chechen people". This is a "gift", which he sends through his watchdog Kafyrov (Kadyrov) to this Chechen people.

These remains of their "gifts" explode instantly upon contact with a human or with hoofs of livestock, and people die and suffer because of it, especially during this time, during this season. Many from the poorest, the lowest section of the Chechen people, who gather ramsons, many times they have been blown up [by these things], and many times they have been suffering from these things. These bombs by themselves are banned by all civilized states in the world.

I am clearly demonstrating you how planes bombed, destruction in forests that is left after their bombardment, entire glades, and how we, Mujahideen, protect our people. These bomblets, remains, are collected by Mujahideen, brought [here], and here are some good specialists, insha'Allah, Allah will grant them Paradise for it, they defuse it, and then we bury it completely, so that it would not harm neither animals, nor [other] fauna, nobody.

Here are all those "gifts", that come to our lands, and all those praises, that are directed to us through television, you can see it. For example, these several bomb[let]s can cause irreparable harm. This single bomb[let] is capable of killing ten people. So let the people, the society, the so called society, see, with which gifts they have come to these lands and how they are doing it.

Excerpt from a 2009 May internet broadcast of the leader of a Chechen separatist organization. Dokka Abu Usman is the Arabized pronunciation, Doka Umarov is the traditional spelling.

Ingushetia's cycle of violence
bbc.co.uk
Page last updated at 11:02 GMT, Saturday, 3 October 2009 12:02 UK

Political violence and killings seem to be daily occurrences in the tiny mainly Muslim republic of Ingushetia in the Russian North Caucasus, which shares a border with Chechnya. Dom Rotheroe explains why.


Batyr Albakov's family learned of his death via the internet "Don't mention to our mother that he was tortured before he died," one of the sisters of the late Batyr Albakov whispers to us before we interview his family. "She doesn't know about that and she has a weak heart."

They came in the early hours of 10 July to take Mamma Albakov's son away. Two carloads of security forces had barged their way into the family flat in Russia's Caucasian republic of Ingushetia. Eleven days later, Batyr's family learned of his death through a report on the internet.

In that time, the 26-year-old aeroplane engineer had supposedly become an Islamic militant, acquired a gun and camouflage gear and been killed in a shoot-out with security forces.

Daily violence

The lie to this is given as soon as Batyr's mother is out of the room, and his siblings show us the mobile phone photos they cannot let her know about.

The photos of their brother's body reveal an array of gruesome injuries - multiple haematomas, knife wounds, an arm almost severed at the shoulder - that could hardly have been sustained in a gunfight. Such incidents occur almost daily in Ingushetia. The territory with its 300,000 people has suffered for sharing a border with Chechnya during the latter's two wars for independence from Russia.


After Russia finally took control of Chechnya, extremist rebels proclaimed an Islamic Emirate Of The North Caucasus and spread the fight into Russia's other mainly Muslim republics, like Ingushetia. Their jihadi ideology has not found much sympathy with the general population. A few miles down the road from the Albakovs we meet another grieving family. Some days before, two of their sisters were shot dead by militants in their roadside kiosk.

'Fake' attack

It was probably because they were selling alcohol, which is not a crime in conservative but secular Ingushetia. Yet, like the Albakovs, the family of the murdered sisters lay the final responsibility on the Russian and Ingush authorities and their security forces. The way these institutions have cracked down on not only the militants but many innocent people has made them the perfect recruiters for the insurgents.

Batyr Albakov's sister, Lisa, blames it on statistics. The security forces have to show they are actively combating the militants, she says. But it is much easier to grab a civilian and dress his corpse up as a militant rather than go into the woods and actually fight the jihadis. People here seem to think the only good thing the Russian authorities have done is replace Ingushetia's loathed President Zyazikov with the popular Yunis-Bek Yevkurov last year.

Mr Yevkurov cracked down on the previous regime's corruption and initiated talks with the militants, yet this June he was nearly killed in a suicide bomb attack on his car. In a society in which blood vendettas are part of a man's honour, young male relatives of the deceased have to seek their own justice. Since then the fight against the militants has indeed been stepped up, but so has the violence against civilians by the security forces. More than 200 people have been killed so far this year, the same figure as for the whole of 2008.

More and more young men are going "into the hills", as joining the rebels is known. Some may do so out of religious belief, yet Magomed Mutsolgov of human rights NGO, Mashr, believes that at least 80% leave home because of revenge. Mashr's office is dominated by a board displaying photographs of the 174 people, including Magomed's younger brother, who have disappeared without trace during the past seven years.
The vast majority of them, Magomed says, were kidnapped by security forces. In the other 500 cases of abduction and murder that are not on the board, not a single member of the security forces has been brought before a court.

'No justice'

It is a complaint we hear all over Ingushetia, that there is no law or justice. President Yunis-Bek Yevkurov was nearly killed in a suicide attack
In a society in which blood vendettas are part of a man's honour, young male relatives of the deceased have to seek their own justice. They head into the hills to get a gun and take revenge. And while with the extremists, their ideology may shift accordingly. Some may become suicide bombers, of which the North Caucasus has seen a resurgence this summer, culminating in an attack on Ingushetia's main police station in August which killed 21 and injured more than 100 more.

My most poignant memory of the Albakov family is of Batyr's younger brother, Beslan. Beslan's rejects blood revenge and wants legal justice for his brother, a justice he knows will never come. He also knows that the security forces will suspect him of seeking revenge and therefore may come for him at any time. His quietly desperate face is the face of Ingushetia today, trapped between the rock and hard place of the militants and the authorities who seem intent on feeding the ever-growing cycle of violence.