MEMORIAL Human Rights Center
Migration Rights Network
Edited
by Svetlana A. Gannushkina
On the Situation of
Residents of
in the
August 2006 – October 2007
2007
Based on the materials gathered by
the Migration Rights Network,
Civic Assistance Committee,
Internet Publication Caucasian Knot,
SOVA Information and
Chairwoman of the Civic Assistance Committee
L.Sh. Simakova, compiler of the
Report
Other contributors to the Report
included: Ye. Burtina,
S. Magomedov,
Sh. Tangiyev,
N. Estemirova
The Migration Rights Network of Memorial Human
Rights Center has 56 offices providing free legal assistance to forced
migrants, including five offices located in
In
ISBN 5-93439-206-9
Circulated free of charge
I . Introduction.............................................................................................
II.
Svetlana Gannushkina's speech at the seminar for administrative judges, Hohenheim, November 25, 2006. Chechen
refugees and the EU qualification rules
III. Living conditions and
security situation of internally displaced persons and residents of the
IV. Situation of people from
V. Situation of people from
VI. Abductions of civilians in the
VII. Conclusion...........................................................................................
VIII.Appendices..........................................................................................
Appendix 1 Data from the poll of residents of TAPs in the city of
Appendix 4 The case of Asuyev’s police gang
Appendix 6 Eye-witness accounts by residents of the
victims
of a mop-up operation
Appendix
7 Illegal detention and torture of Khasiyev and Ipayev at ORB-2
Appendix
9 Address by Lidiya Yusupova, lawyer with Memorial Human Rights Center
Appendix
10 Abduction of Sultan Barakhoyev from settlement Kartsa, the North
Ossetia-Alania Republic
Appendix 12 Abductions (disappearances) of people in
Appendix 13 Address by members of the public of the Republic Ingushetia
List of Abbreviations
CR –
the
RI – the
RNO-A -
the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania
RD - the
IDPs –
persons displaced within the country (or internally displaced persons)
TACs –
temporary accommodation centers for IDPs located in
TAPs –
temporary accommodation points for IDPs located in the
CAPs –
compact accommodation points for IDPs located in
HRC –
NCOs –
non-commercial organizations
NGOs –
non-governmental organizations
MD –
Ministry of Defense
FSB –
Federal Security Service
UFSB –
Federal Security Service Directorate
GRU –
Main Intelligence Directorate
ATC –
MVD –
Ministry of the Interior
MChS
- Emergency Situations Ministry
VV
- Interior Ministry Forces
GUVD –
Chief Directorate of the Interior Ministry
OVD –
Interior Ministry Department
ROVD –
District Department of the Interior Ministry
GOVD -
Municipal Department of the Interior Ministry
VOVD –
Temporary Department of the Interior Ministry
BOP GU - Chief Directorate for Combating Organized Crime
RUBOP –
Regional Directorate for Combating Organized Crime
ORB –
Investigations and Law-Enforcement Operations Bureau
OMON –
special purpose police unit
SOBR –
special rapid reaction unit
APC
- armored personnel carrier
PPS –
Patrol and Point Duty Service
PPSM –
Police Patrol and Point Duty Service Regiment
DPS –
Traffic Police Service
GIBDD - State
Traffic Safety Inspectorate
IAGs –
illegal armed groups
IVS –
temporary detention center
SIZO –
pretrial detention center
FMS –
Federal Migration Service
UFMS –
Federal Migration Service Directorate
MTF
- commercial dairy farm
I.
Introduction
This report is the sixth on the situation of
residents of the
During this time, especially first six month
2007,
Be sure, these changes gladden residents and
all those, who wish them happiness and peace.
The scene of
People in
However, it is impossible to support oneself
for a long time by free enthusiasm, by voluntary-obligatory work, as it was in
the Soviet time. Unemployment is still a big problem in
As to the safety, against the background of
obvious and essential decrease of the number of abductions of people and
out-of-court execution, a new process is developing: manufacture of criminal
cases, where the main evidence is sincere acknowledgement, known in the Stalin
times as the "queen of evidence".
In the report we tried to describe the
mechanism of manufacturing the criminal cases. The people who are coming back
from abroad are at the most dangerous position especially those who are
supposed to have considerably big sums money. The claimants to the European
Court of Human Rights are also in danger.
As
for the rest, the situation hasn't radically changed since autumn 2006. That is
why our sixth report is opened by Svetlana Gannushkina's speech at the seminar
for administrative judges in Hokhonheim. The questions raised there were
suggested by judges themselves, that is why the answers may be of value for all
those, who are still interested in all, what is going on in
II. Svetlana Gannushkina's speech at the seminar for administrative
judges, Hohenheim, November 25, 2006.
Chechen refugees and the EU qualification rules
Ladies and gentlemen,
1. I would like to thank the sponsors and
participants of this seminar for the given opportunity to speak here. In a few
words I will introduce our organization and its work. The two non-governmental
organizations, where I work, provide assistance to forced migrants, to refugees
from different countries, mainly from
The Network lawyers annually consult more than
20, 000 people and take part in a few thousands court sessions. This hard work
comes in huge volumes. However, considering the territory of our country and
the size of the problem, we realize that our help reaches only a small part of
those, who need it. For example, in
The situation of the IDPs from
The subject of my speech today is the situation
of residents of
2. The
situation of people from
I think it would be right to start with the
second part. Since there are mostly lawyers here, I will focus on some legal
aspects.
There is no definition of internally displaced
persons (IDPs) in the Russian legislation, as in many other national systems.
People from
At the heart of the UN line of approach to the
problem of IDPs is the thesis, that the state government (if a part of its
population has been exposed to displacement) has the initial responsibility to
provide them with legal safeguard and humanitarian. Though the opinion that it
is an internal affair of a state to deal with its citizens was quite
widespread, now the world community begins to realize its responsibility for
the sufferers and discriminated people anywhere in the world.
Unfortunately, the situation in
What facilities does a Russian have? Let’s look
at my example. Like most of our citizens, I
don't have a bank account and don't have an opportunity to take a loan,
arriving at a new place. We exist on our salaries, pensions (retired pays) and
if we lose them, we are left penniless. The only thing that we have left after
Perestroika is the right to privatize state-owned apartments. I have a big flat
in the centre of
That's why, sizing the possibilities of
alternative ways for residents of Chechnya to be resettled, we should remember,
that we are not really speaking of that, but about a chance to resettle on
their own, using their savings and help of relatives. We are raising the
question whether the state carries out its duty to help them. The answer is
negative: it doesn't only fail to help them, but it also breaks the first
Principle. Those, who found shelter in other regions of
Let's focus on some main problems that face
citizens, who wish to resettle in another region and who have shelter and a
little money.
1) Rent. The rental housing market is rather small
everywhere through out the country. Most of our citizens don't have second
housing, that is why they usually lease a part of their own, i.e. a room in
their apartment. As a rule those who lease are old people or unemployed, very
often – alcoholics. Old people may be very content, having a Chechen family in
their home, because they receive care and respect together with the rent. But
usually they are afraid to conclude an official agreement and give their
tenants an opportunity to register in the flat, as they don't want to deal with
police and taxation authorities. It often happens, that when policemen learn
about Chechens living in their area, they threaten the renters different
punishment, convince them that there is a law or by-law, which interdicts
dealing with Chechens. Partly they tell the truth, there is a secret
instruction for the police to keep an eye on all Chechens in their area. If
something happens, policemen will bear responsibility for it, they should have
to provide no Chechens on the territory. When an explosion occurred in the
This situation makes Chechens register with
their relatives or friends and live in a rented apartment and often change it.
Moreover, they constantly pay policemen, so that the latter don't counteract
their living. It is possible to solve the problem of registration judicially,
only if the one, who gives housing
for registration, shows much insistency. There was such experience, but very
limited. Sometimes we register people in our own house, but it is obvious, that
there can't be many of them. Policemen regularly visit our colleagues to check
the tenants and whether they are trustworthy or not. This makes us set up a
show, demonstrating all sleeping accommodations, gathering the tenants or their
home belongings... Naturally, you must have internal motivation to do all this,
and we can't expect it from ordinary people, who are constantly being turned
against Chechens by mass media.
2) Registration. Some important changes were
made to the Rules of Registration of residence on December 22, 2004. It
happened rather amusingly. Vladimir Putin was in
How does it affect the IDPs from the CR? These
changes exist for two years already, but its rooting took much time. Only now
it finally begins to be executed. But there is much uncertainty in it. For
example, how can a newcomer prove his recent coming, if he had traveled by car or
even on foot? Is a cheap ticket from a neighboring region enough, or does a
person has to go back and forth every three months. Now if a newcomer is
stopped by a policeman, the latter can present a train or plain ticket, which
proves, he has arrived no more than 90 days ago. On this basis he can’t be
fined and if he faces a fair police officer, we will not be victimized.
Of course, such system is much better than the
previous one, however it's impossible to solve some problems this way.
Anti-chechen police officer, especially the
one, who had been to Chechnya, can actually rip up the ticket and take the IDP
to the local police station, where the latter will face all the same things:
trumped-up charges of hooliganism, at best, or of planted drugs and explosives,
at worst. There may be beating, long detentions, threats and rescue of money.
It often happens that after all this an administrative case is heard in court,
charging of disorderly conduct. Police like to charge Chechens of Russian
obscenities, indicating the time, when the accused was under arrest. This is
done in order to justify the illegal detention.
There is still risk, that if a policeman knows
where a Chechen lives for more than 90 days, he will come to that apartment. A
protocol would be drawn up and the host would be asked to evict the unlawful
tenant.
3) Work, education, medical service, pensions and other social
allowances. All this is only possible, if a person has
registration. The same thing happens with employers as with hosts: they are told
not to engage Chechens. They receive these "recommendations" from
police, or more often from the FSB (Federal Security Service). The latter never
admits its interference, but not many people are ready to neglect its
recommendations, and it's absolutely impossible to fight against it. We know
situations, when Chechen women were fired step by step from a sewing workshop,
a shopping store, an office where they were just cleaning the placement, as
they've failed to find the work by qualification. In May 2006 sixteen Chechen
drivers were fired from a car fleet, 2 of them were
The education in specialized secondary schools
is available only for those who have permanent resident registration, temporary
registration is not enough. This means it is not open for IDPs. Federal
institutes of higher education accept students on terms of passing exams. This
applies to all RF citizens. However, it more often occurs that they have to pay
for the higher education, which becomes inaccessible for IDPs. Fortunately,
after several court sessions schools are open for everyone. Anyhow, there are
almost no complains on refusals in schools, but when they occur, the case can
be often settled.
Full medical service is possible only if a
person has temporary residence registration. In spite of the fact that medical
service should be given in any settlement, the companies connect medical
insurance with permanent registration. The IDPs can get temporary medical
policy on terms of temporary residence registration, if there is no
registration at all - only emergency medical treatment. We know of refusals
even in this kind of medical aid. This can happen because free medical
treatment becomes less inclusive.
The registration as pensioners is possible only
if a person has temporary residence registration. But the initial legalization
of the pension is possible (pension execution is done), if a person has
permanent residence registration. Child allowances aren't also paid without
permanent registration. This fact negatively affects the financial condition of
large families, for which the allowance is rather considerable. The first time
we faced this problem in 2006, when Law No. 122 came into force. The law
replaced in-kind benefits with cash payments (monetizing benefits). According
to this law, local authorities are due to pay all the allowances, that is why
they refuse to pay temporary residents.
4) Documents. It's well known that
documents play an important role in people's life. Fransis Deng Principle No.20
demands the state to provide IDPs with all necessary documents: passports,
birth certificates, marriage certificates. Nevertheless passport services
require people to receive passport at those settlements where they are
permanently registered. i.e. in
In accordance with paragraph 16 of the
"Passport Regulations for RF citizens" which was adopted by the
decision of Russian government No. 828 on July 17, 1997 - "passport is
given to a citizen in 10 days, from the date of document admission by the law
enforcement agency"[1]. However, it's impossible to receive your passport in this period. I
had to wait for about a month, my husband - about three weeks. We were given
certificates of the admission of our documents, but we never needed it. For
Chechens it's different, it's hard to get along with it. If they got a chance
to submit their documents in
But of course the main problem is the hazard to
life, which anyone can face, returning to
The problem is much bigger for those, who had
no passport at all, because of their age, or lost their old Soviet one. A trip
to
Sometimes the IDPs, who went to
Malika Mintsayeva, one of the persons under our
care has a number of adult children and five under aged - two of her own and a
granddaughter. Until recently only Malika had a passport. The family lives in
Finally, we managed to arrange a meeting for
Malika and the head of FMS (Federal Migration Service) of
However, the decision hadn't been brought to
life for more than six months. Our calls to the FMS Administration and the
local passport department a little changed the situation - documents were
taken, but this didn't lead to full success. At the end, on a Friday Malika
told the Head of the department, that on Monday, she was going to see Putin and
that she had an intention to tell him about the whole mess. Funny enough, this
made an effect, Malika was stopped and during Saturday all seven passports were
issued.
Passports is not the only problem in this
long-suffering family. 13-yearold Malika's daughter was arrested and taken to a
police station; she wasn't even allowed to call her mother. Once the detention
lasted for almost day and night, the girl was taken to the hospital for
homeless children, so that after a medical examination she would be sent back
to
You shouldn't think that IDPs face problems
only in
Here I have some examples from rather peaceful
regions. Refusal in registration in
Chechen IDPs are being evicted from temporary
accommodation centers in a judicial proceeding. Just 1-2 years ago courts
adopted decisions in behalf of IDPs, holding to an opinion, that IDPs can't be
evicted without providing them with other housing. Now the view of courts has
changed: decisions on eviction are being adopted even concerning those, whose
documents for some reason haven't been accepted for compensation.
During the liquidation of camps in Ingushetia
some of the IDPs who didn’t want to return to
Thus, Chechens have no other choice but to go
back to
3. Compensations for lost housing and property.
Before I move on to the situation in
Resolution No. 404 of July 4, 2003 determines
the amount of compensations in
At the time of adoption, the Resolution No.404
included point No.10, which ordered the government to make changes to the
Resolution No.510, concerning the amount of the compensations. People awaited
these changes not for months, but for years. Instead of it, the government
issued Resolution No.489, the 24 point of which abolished many of government's
decisions, including point 10 of the Resolution No.404. No explanation was
given.
Thus the opportunity to settle in other regions
is practically excluded not only for Chechens, but also for Russian IDPs from
During 1997-September 2006 36 792 families
received the compensation under the Resolution No.510, at that just 278
families received it in 2006. During 2003-September 2006 45,447 families
received compensation under Resolution No.404, at that 1750 families – in 2006[2]. These numbers show that not more than a third of Chechen population
counted one million and a half received the compensation. We also see that the
amount of payments last year is insignificant. The budget doesn't plan raising
the amount of compensations and most of the IDPs don't even receive, what they
are supposed to.
Thus we can definitely say that there is no alternative in settling
Chechen residents out of the
4. Situation in the
We can't speak of minimum safety level provided
for residents in the
In newspapers and in our annual reports you can
read about some important events: June 4, 2005, the Borozdinovka village,
eleven residents were abducted, four houses were burnt down, in one of them an
old man was burnt away; April 15, 2005, during zachistka (mop-up operation) Murad Muradov, the chairman of the
non-governmental organization "Let's save the Generation" was
kidnapped; April 9, 2006, Sernovodsk, abduction of our employee Bulat Chilaev.
All these abductions have 3 common features: first, civilians were kidnapped,
law enforcement agencies of the
An unbelievable thing happened on June 9, 2006:
Satsita Mataeva, a resident of
Satsita Matayeva explained that on June 4 an
unknown man called on her cell phone. He introduced himself as Sergey
Aleksandrovich, officer of the Prosecutor's Office. He asked to tell her
husband, that he has to come to the Prosecutor's Office the next day; he was
suspected as a member of illegal armed groups.
The Shalinsky District Prosecutor's Office
opened a criminal case No. 56049 under Article 208, Part 2 of the RF Criminal
Code.
The Prosecutor's official also informed that a
Khamzat Tushayev was recognized not to leave.
On June 8, Tushayev and his wife came to the
Government complex, the Prosecutor's Office is situated there, at
Taushev's wife remained outside. Warring that
her husband is absent for so long, at 17:30 she asked the police officer at the
security desk to call the Prosecutor's Office. The officer made a call and
asked about Taushev. Prosecutor's officer said, that Khamzat Taushev hadn't
come and hadn't registered.
The next day Taushev's wife turned to Memorial
Human Rights Center in
Almost 6 months have passed since the day of
disappearance of Khamzat Taushev, but his location is unknown[3].
Satsita Matayeva claims that since her first
report to Memorial HRC on June 9, 2006, the Grozny Prosecutor's Office has done
no investigations in search for her husband. We sent a request to the Office,
but the answer had only 3 lines, which had contained no sense grammatically or
literally.
On top of all that it was signed by some Deputy
Prosecutor with a Russian last name, what makes us doubt his sobriety, and
leaves no doubt on his professionalism.
All this shows the level of lawlessness, routed
in the
Nevertheless, I would like to focus on an
important aspect of the security problem. It concerns the situation of those
Chechen residents, who return to the CH from abroad. So far, when I was asked,
whether they have extra problems comparing to the rest of residents, I
answered, that there are no such examples, of which I know. Unfortunately,
today I should say "yes, they do". I will give some examples, but
first I will speak about the causes of these changes. The thing is that so far
main harassment agencies in
All these people know the rather small
population of
I'll give three examples:
1. Thirty-year-old Rustam M, native of
Later it became known through unofficial
channels that Rustam was detained in Hosy-Yurt village (or Tsentoroy), native
2. Resident of the Prigorodnoye village, the
Grozny Rural District, Magomet Gabuyev, aged 24, returned to
Early morning on November 8, 2006, the house of
Gabuev's relatives in Kalinovskaya village was surrounded. Neighbors heard the
noise and ran to the house. They asked the officers not to open fire, they
promised to take Magomet out of the house and hand him to the police. Magomet
Gabuev made an attempt to run away. Aiming fire was open without notice. He was
shot in his leg with a non-centered bullet, he received incompatible with life
injuries and died at the scene of the event. His body was taken to the
Vladikavkaz mortuary. The next day he was given to his relatives for burying.
This means that there were no charges of terrorism, because bodies of militants
are not given for burying.
3. Beslan Gadayev lived in
At the same time Gadayev's relatives, who lived
abroad, turned to me with a request to spot the location of his detention and
asked to find a lawyer for him. Zaur Zakriev, the lawyer, found his defendant
in the
As it appears from the lawyer’s statement, his
defendant confessed in committing armed robbery against a law-enforcement
officer in 2004. Nevertheless,
August 30, 2006 Memorial HRC received an
statement from the accused Beslan Gadayev. As it appears from the application
illicit methods of inquiry were used towards him. In the application he
described in details the torture, executed to him and facts that he fainted
several times.
According to the lawyer, his defendant had
bodily injury that appeared because of violence held towards him. The accused
man was transferred to the medical unit of the Grozny SIZO-
In the statement Gadayev explained, that he was
forced to sign all the service documents and give interviews to journalists
after making him up under the threat of sexual abuse. At the same time it was
noted in the record of interrogation that Gadayev suffered the bodily injuries,
trying to get over the fence, at an attempt to escape.
At the same time, the state-given lawyer wasn't
present, when Gadayev was signing the record. He just recommended him to sign
the documents, speaking to the accused by phone.
Zaur Zakriev sent petitions to the Prosecutor's
Office of the
However, the interrogation officer refused to
open a criminal case upon torture, held over Gadayev. According to the lawyer,
the interrogation officer explained the refusal, saying that the reason was his
unwillingness to deal with Gadayev, "who doesn't speak Russian well and
needs an interpreter".
The given examples illustrate what can happen
to former residents of
6. Xenophobia and its forms.
There are no doubts that the xenophobia in
I would like to go for a quotation from the
last articles of Yury Levada, recently deceased, our famous sociologist. The
name of the work is "Does Law-Enforcement Work towards Overcoming or
Spreading Violence in Society?" The article became an introduction to a
co-research work "Law Enforcement Arbitrariness Index” of the Fund
"Public Verdict", regional partnership organizations and
"... violence of police and other law-enforcement agencies is just
a part of violence in Russian society,
which becomes a standard of life. Violence as a method of governing
administration and a way of solving other problems compensates the imperfection
of other legal, civil means to maintain order in society. - said Yury Levada.
The phenomenon of physical violence may be found in various societies.
The question is in the level of acceptance and in rates of effectiveness of the
violent actions. In countries with an established legal system, powerful mass
media, formed public opinion and other features of an "open" society
violent actions of government agencies may play a role of extraordinary,
limited in its aims and scale supplement to "normal" means of social
impact and concussion. It's known that such violence and brutality calls a wave
of public discontent dangerous for the government itself.
Another situation is usually observed in the countries, that are used to
mass violence, that don't have an effective legal system and other attributes
of an "open" society. These include many Third World countries and a
number of post soviet states, including
It's obvious, that residents of
I've already mentioned the abduction case of
Murad Muradov, Head of the "Save Generation" organization. In the end
of February, 2006, his relatives received an offer from the Prosecutor's Office
to take the body of Murad from the mortuary. It was said in the notification:
"according to the acquired by the RF UFSB of the CR information, no
incriminating evidence against Murad Muradov was found; he hadn't been a member
of IAGs. There are no facts of his connection to crimes of terrorism."
However, on October 13 the NTV station
transmitted a 26-minute TV program, called "Human matter" under the
program "Chrezvychaynoye proisshestviye" [emergency]. The question
was "connections" of the Chechen underground (authors named them
"bandits") with international and Russian charitable organizations.
Almost all charitable organization, working in the
Here is what was said in this program about
Murad Muradov: "Head of the charitable organization "Save the
Generation" Murad Muradov was killed on April 15,
And so on: "According to law-enforcement
agencies of the CR, Muradov financed terrorists under the cover of charitable
organization and transferred wounded terrorists abroad. And the statement of
human rights defenders, that Muradov was abducted and brought to the scene of
the crime and killed there, was connected with their unwillingness to lose
their image".
Every
day we hear this blatant lie from TV, from newspapers. It makes Chechens very
assailable for harassments of extreme groups.
Prime
examples of harassments to Chechens as an ethnical group are: the Yandyki
village, the Astrahan’ region, August 2005, after an ordinary scuffle the
Cossack Council demanded all Chechens to leave Yandyki; Salsk, the Rostov
region, June 2006, Cossacks also demanded all “anti-social” migrants evicted
from the region.
Finally,
the most featured incident happened in Kondopoga,
The
next day members of the extremist “Movement against illegal immigration” (DPNI)
arrived in Kondopoga with its leader Potkin (his fictitious name is Belov).
Belov-Potkin delivered a fiery speech, encouraging Russian residents of
Kondapoga to make a stand against Chechens and other “outside non-Russians” and
show “Who’s the Boss”.
After
the meeting people began to destroy Chechens’ property and burn their houses.
The conflict escalated into a mass demand to expel all Chechens. I should
notice that neither law-enforcement agencies, nor the Representative of the RF
Administration of the human rights commissioner found any elements of a crime
in the actions of Belov, because he exercised caution and didn’t call upon
direct violence.
After
all that happened in Kandapoga, the protests and demonstrations in support of
Kondapoga’s residents ran through the country. Members of the DPNI and their
confederates threatened, that “the same will happen everywhere!”.
I
can just state with a sad heart, that there are no reasons, why we could object
to them. Thank you for your time and patience.
III. Living conditions and security situation of
internally displaced persons and residents of the
The
situation of residents of the Republic during the period of August 2006-October
2007 has greatly changed. Until the end of 2006 there was a tendency of murder
and abduction decrease. Starting from January 2007 the number of abductions
dramatically dropped. Some suppose that it was to do with Ramzan Kadyrov order
to the Chiefs of subordinated to him force structures, not to allow any
abductions. This decreased the tension, people could breathe freely.
Nevertheless many people impart apprehensions, that this could be reversed.
The
intention to change the situation in the Republic dramatically was expressed by
Ramzan Kadyrov in an interview to the Interfax Information Services[4]: “Peace in the
In
the interview Ramzan Kadyrov spoke about his future plans. For example, it’s
planned to build and restore more than 8 thousand apartment unlit the end of
2007. These apartments are assigned for “very poor families”.
On
February 15, 2007, Alu Alhanov, the president of the
Since
spring housing has been more actively constructed in the city of
(“Russian Newspaper”, July 10, 2007.)
One
of these opportunities is free of charge labour, of those who build up Chechen
cities and towns. No contracts are signed with them, just parole promises. No
one pays them salaries for 3 months. Here is what a bricklayer from
Urus-Martanovsky region Borz-Ali Visitaev said to Memorial HRC member[5]: “When I was applying for the
job, I just made an arrangement, no contract was signed. When I asked about it,
they told me, that I’ll receive it later. No one from our team (about 50 people
from our district) has a contract. We made an arrangement for a month with a
driver and a contract with a canteen. But we’ve been paid no salary and now owe
money to the driver and cooks. We received no money and I’m in debt. I have 5
children, what will I bring home, if I must give back a half?”
A
protest action of workers was held in June in the Chernorechie village, of the
Zavodskoy District of Grozny.
On
June
In
the end a representative of the Spetsstroy
(the Russian Federal Agency for Special Construction) promised that the salary
would be paid in 3 days. But on June 8 it wasn’t paid.
In
the morning the workers gathered again and got the road, leading to the center
of
By
the evening of June 10 workers were finally paid their salaries, but just two
times less then they were promised.
On
June 12 just tree workers out of 139 came to work.
But
the administration didn’t come to terms, and it refused to conclude contracts
of employment and pay the rest of the salaries. All the strikers together with
their team leaders were fired.
Memorial
HRC sent a request to the CR Prosecutor’s Office, concerning the unpaid
employees. The Prosecutor’s Office made enquiry on the actions of the building
companies. The fact of delayed payment was confirmed. The director of the firm
that was doing the constructing in the Chernorechie village “Steklomontage” was
found guilty. He was fined 25 minimum monthly wages (that is about 100
dollars), other managers of the company were given admonitions.
In
August six thousand workers got 100,000 rubles (2,857,000 euros), approximately
16,700 rubles (477 euro) a month (newspaper “Caucasian Knot”, August 8, 2007).
However, in the beginning of September another worker delegation came to
Memorial HRC Office, stating, that they hadn’t got their salaries for five
months.
Besides,
we should mention, that the workers in the building site are at constant risk
of injuries, as no one controls the abidance of safety measures. People work
without personal protective equipment on large apartment house. Thus, since the
beginning of constructions in the Chernorechye village 6 persons have received
different injuries. Medical insurance is not provided. Here is what Abaz, an
adjuster, who was injured in the building site in the
In
that same February interview to the Interfax Information Services Kadyrov said,
that the Chechen Government set itself a task to “crack the problems of social
tension, of providing residents temporary accommodation points with their own
housing.”…
According
to officials[7], Ramzan Kadyrov instructed the government to dispose all temporary
accommodation points and compact accommodation points on the territory of the
Republic, providing its residents with their own housing and helping them to
repair and improve it.
It’s
impossible to fulfill the task, but it’s necessary to account for it. That’s
why in 2007 most temporary accommodation points were closed, without any
replacing housing.
Campaign to Shut Down TAPs
In
July last year there were 26 TAPs in the Republic. 4 642 families lived there,
that is 26,442 people, 4,526 of which were children of under 6 years old.
As
of July 1, 2007, just 22 TAPs remained in the Republic and they were under
liquidation. As of June 1, 2007, 25,473 people lived in TAPs, and 15,686 – in
CAPs.
The
course for liquidation of the TAPs was laid by Ramzan Kadyrov in April 2006,
when he announced, that the TAPs are “nests of crime, drug abuse, and
prostitution” and they have to be closed. We spoke about the liquidation of
TAPs in
The
Office of Memorial HRC in
The
free TAP building on
During
the resettling the IDPs are required to sign a statement that they are
willingly returning to places of their permanent living. This statement
deprives them not only of housing, but also of food assistance. Migration
agencies consider their commitments, which were undertaken registering the IDPs
under the form No.7, they got leaving
Memorial
HRC has received numerous claims since March 2007 from residents of the TAPs on
They
often use positive fraud. Here is what they’ve done with E. Hazirayeva, a
resident of a TAP on
On
March 19, 2007 the commission members of the district administration and the
ROVD officers arrived to the TAP on
Inhabitants
of the TAP returned to
April
26-27, 2007, housing in KSM-1 village (Zavodskoy district of Grozny) were being
demolished. This place was called “
We
sent a request to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Zavodskoy District, concerning
the demolition of the KSM-1 village. The answer was signed by A. Bakhanoyev,
acting Prosecutor of the district, it made us believe, that the matter may be
settled successfully.
“…irrespective
of whether the houses were built authorized or not, the
-
sixteen families were
granted apartments in the
-
twenty-two families were
granted land plots for individual constructing on the territory of the
Zavodskoy District…”
However,
in real the situation wasn’t as good, as it seemed. The land plots were
granted, electricity and gas weren’t connected to them, but there was no
extension and no roads to the plots. The house-boxes were given to the
residents by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. In return the
administration of the city had to make the foundation and provide material for
covering the walls; otherwise it would be impossible to live there. Nothing was
done. In the end the foundation was done by the residents themselves and no
material for the wall covering was received from the city administration.
The
majority of the apartments, which were granted to former residents of the KSM-1
village, were inhabited by other people.
Besides,
several families received nothing – no apartments, no land plots. S.-H.
Tsentoroev, the head of the Zavodskoy District administration, harshly
threatened them with eviction. People were practically thrown out on the
street.
On
July 19, an article was placed on the CR Government web-site[9], the name of it is “Control Checks at TAPs”.
The
main point of the article is that during the examination, it turned out, that
many people, who occupy rooms and receive humanitarian assistance don’t
practically live in the TAPs.
During
night raids the members of the commission didn’t find some of the TAP residents
in their rooms. The article says: “According to preliminary data about 20
families weren’t found at home that night. That is just in the Zavodskoy
District, of
They
plan raids to become regular. A working group, supervised by M. Bakharchiev
(Head of the Leninsky District), deals with the matter. According to our data,
received from L. Koplanov, an officer of the UFMS, no migrant service officers
take part in it.
On June 21 the residents from the TAP on Okruzhnaya Street were forced to
leave. In the afternoon the district administration representatives,
accompanied by law-enforcement officers arrived at the “complex”. Authority
representatives from the Urus-martynovskogo District behaved so aggressively,
that 3 women had a heart attack. An emergency was called. 3 families were
forced to pack there thing and leave. Their rooms were sealed off. The
Davletmurzanovs from Urus-Martyn found themselves in the street, without even a
destroyed house, where they would be able to live. It began to rain in the
evening. In order not to spend the night in the rain, their father took off the
seal from their rooms and the family moved back in.
On June 21, 2007, TAP residents, on
According
to Avlavdy Khasimikov, Deputy Head of the UFMS in the CR, 528 families (3,406
people) were taken off register in May.
That
same day eight families were taken by bus from the TAP in the building of a vocational-technical school in Argun. 5
of them were taken to Gudermes and settled in a hostel on
Other
families from the Argun TAP were supposed to be settled in vocational-technical
school hostel near by. The building is financed by the city. Those who live
there, have no connections with the migration service. They have no nutrition
provision and no furniture. Thus people, moved a couple of meters lose their
legal status and get a worse social position, than they had before.
All
administration Heads received a strict order to “get back all its residents and
resettle them”.
Some
residents got land plots for constructions in the outskirts, where no gas and
electricity had been connected. And they will probably receive no help in
constructing and buying all the necessary materials.
On July
On July 25
inhabitants of the TAP at 47, Kirova Street, were tried to be exposed again.
Mr. Bakharchiev, the Head of the Leninsky District, Deputy Chairman of the IDPs
resettlement commission, Mr. Gekhaev, Minister of Housing, Mr. Muzakayev,
Minister of Cultural Affairs informed the residents, that “Peaceful Caucasus”
festival guests were planning to be placed in that building. TAP inhabitants
were suggested move before 6 p.m. People were struck with panic.
The
Leninsky District administration representatives, accompanied by a police
officer, went round the rooms. They demanded the residents to pack their
belonging and leave as soon as possible. During the circuit police officers
from the department No. 1 of the Leninsky ROVD, badly beat one of the
inhabitants – Alikhan Sadykov. He refused to give his passport and to go to the
superintendent’s room.
They
used brute force towards him. His wife and neighbors women stood up for him.
The policemen started to beat these people with the submachine gun Kalashnikov
club. They got Sadykov outside and forced him into the car. According to the
eyewitnesses, he was all in blood. He was brought to the Leninsky District
ROVD.
The
residents reported about the outrage in the TAP to the human rights activists.
Members of the Public Chamber, of Vesta, of Memorial HRC and the chairwoman of
the Migration Organizations Forum, Lidiya Grafova, who arrived in
On July 19 members
of Memorial HRC visited the TAP at 116,
The
IDPs state, that these movements make a lot of problems for them. According to
them, they are tired of wandering from place to place, of changing schools for
their children, of changing their jobs. TAP inhabitants insist on providing
them with permanent accommodation, not temporary. The TAP residents from 116,
Among
those who made a request to Memorial Human Rights Center four families need
special assistance, because each one of them has disabled persons. However the
district administration didn’t provide any assistance to them, but the entrance
doors were taken off their apartments, in order to make them leave.
At
the same time the administration members, talking to Human rights activists
made it clear, that they have no right to solve all the upcoming questions,
during the IDP resettlement, as they are just the executives. All problems,
concerning accommodation or non-resettlement should be considered in upper
instances.
Our
members had a consultation with the TAP residents. It showed the catastrophic
situation of some families, which had nowhere to go (Appendix 1).
There
was also a request to deliver into charge of the migration service the
supervision of the lawfulness of the register taking off and the observance of
human rights, so that no IDP could be evicted from his accommodation.
Families,
which became much bigger during the conflict and can’t any longer live
together, make another problem. In peaceful time they would build a new house
or buy one for a young family, but for many years already they’ve been deprived
of this opportunity. Now they have to get along with a small compensation for a
large family or restore housing, where it’s impossible to live all together.
Families
that rented accommodation or lived in hostels, waiting to receive apartments
on-site his\her work. It turns out now, that the state has no responsibilities
before them.
During
military activities the situation on these IDPs had no difference with the
others. Now their eviction is inadmissible. As the local authorities don’t have
any responsibilities because of no registration, this responsibility should be
taken by the federal government, specifically the FMS of Russia, as the body,
that deals with the IDP problems.
Those
families from the TAPs who have been fortunate enough to get an apartment in
On
May 1 the grand opening of the township “Vozrozhdeniye”
[Revival] was held. The township is situated in the Staropromyslovsky
District of Grozny. It consists of 85 houses for poor and large families from
the TAPs. The event was widely covered in the local press.
The
construction of the village was begun in the
Nevertheless,
a few dozen people got their housing documents, it was only necessary to make
internal finishes, install doors and windows, as well as to connect to the
mains (water, electricity and gas).
Citizens
who have these housing documents, issued in the late 1980s or early 1990s,
attempted to settle this issue through the courts and the Prosecutor's Office,
but were refused everywhere.
There
is a conflict situation: residents relocated from the TAPs cannot move into the
disputed apartments.
The
same problem arises with those who receive flats from a so-called
"rejected Stock". Despite the fact that they have the necessary paper
work on hand, they often have to go through a long trial, to defend the right
to the housing. At that the other party in the process is the house owner, who
acquired it from Russian residents who fled from
Apartments
were sold for a song and without proper documentation, so many of the owners,
who left Grozny, considered themselves entitled to be compensated under the RF
Government Regulation No. 510 of April 30, 1997 for the apartments they had
sold. The flats, which implicate such compensation, are included to the public
housing stock, the so-called "rejected Stock." According to the
officials[11], more than 5,800 apartments are registered in it.
The
current owner of a "rejected" apartment loses his rights to it. He
appeals to the court. The court determines the fact of fraud, but decrees a
refusal to initiate a criminal case under the statute of limitations. The
decree is not issued until the investigation is complete, but it can take
months or even years.
Thus
because of the inaction of the investigation agencies the owner can be evicted
from his accommodation because it is listed "rejected" and can be
given to the TAP residents. If this happens, a housing dispute arises. These
housing disputes are tried in courts between the owners and people with the
social rent contract on hand. If there is no prosecutorial order, that proves
the fact of fraud, decisions are made in favor of the new tenants.
So
as a result of this solution to the problem of resettlement of TAP residents,
another group of victims was emerged - owners of the apartments evicted from
the acquired accommodation. They are outraged that the authorities give
preference to the TAP residents and prejudice the rights of those, who have
equipped their homes during the war by their own forces. The massive seizure of
"rejected" apartments creates an acute conflict situation around the
resettlement of TAP residents and leads to the increase of social tensions.
It
is clear that all the problems of resettlement of the TAP residents arise
because of the extreme haste during the TAP liquidation.
According
to the results of the checks on the territory of the Republic six temporary
accommodation points for displaced persons were vacated. Over four thousand
people were taken off the Migration Service register.
At
the same time, apartment allocations to TAP residents, using the public housing
stock, were terminated on June 20 by the order of Grozny Muslim, the mayor of
RF
Government Resolution ¹ 163 is still in power, providing nutrition and
accommodation for IDPs in the TAPs. Consequently, the TAPs must remain, so that
the citizens, who do not have their homes and are registered under the form ¹
7, could live there until the final decision on their resettlement is made.
In
fact, in spite of the rapid reconstruction and the revival of
Social
conditions
The
biggest social problem in the Republic is unemployment.
Until recently the number of unemployed was 318 thousand people – about 70% of
the economically active population.
In
the mean time, a large number of people are employed in the reconstruction,
which reduces the problem. However, as stated above, salaries are delayed or
not paid at all to many workers. This is a principled position of the
Government high officials.
Discussing
with representatives of the Civil assistance Committee the program of school
assistance in the mountainous areas, one of the officials suggested not to lay
builders and repairmen salary in the proposed budget. "We are building
everything free of charge", he said.
At
the same time, Abdula Magomedov, CR Minister of Economic Development and Trade,
in an interview with a journalist of "Vesti
Respubliky"[12] said that it is scheduled to create 10 thousand jobs in 2007.
The
Minister also noted that the project "Development of agricultural
machinery-building industry" is being performed, its main aim is to ensure
the growth of agricultural production. The plans also include accelerated
development of animal breeding, promoting individual farming and the provision
of young professionals in rural areas with affordable accommodation.
According
to the OAO "Rosselhozbank" in the framework of this project the bank
has allocated loans in 161.2 million rubles. As of April 1 this year 915
applicants called for a grant to the CR Department of Agriculture. The credits
are amounted to 9.5 million rubles. Thus, the residents are ready to use every
opportunity to survive.
The
health care system in the Republic is a difficult situation, although the
Ministry does everything possible to improve it.
As
part of a national project Zdorovie [Health],
273 items of modern diagnostic equipment are purchased[13]. But many hospitals, where equipment must be shipped, are totally or
partially destroyed or need reconstruction or just major repairs.
The
lack of modern, well-equipped medical facilities and trained personnel does not
allow organizing high-tech medical care, and patients have to apply to
hospitals outside the Republic. The Civil assistance Committee, in cooperation
with the "Caritas" of France, using funds of the European Commission,
exercises an assistance program for ill residents of Chechnya: assist in the
organization of their treatment in Moscow and other cities of Russia, as well
as the payment for trips, accommodation and medical examinations. More than
6000 patients received medical help during three years of work of the program.
Currently,
the CR Government developed an investment project to build a medical diagnostic
center in the Republic, which will provide appropriate medical services
locally.
In
the Republic there is a severe shortage of medical professionals. Overall,
there are only enough doctors to fill 46.8% of positions, and in rural areas –
only 35%.
This
year an agreement has been reached between the Ministry of Health of
In
addition, 30 places are allocated for postgraduates.
A
national project is being implemented in the educational sphere: schools received 134 model kits of training
equipment worth 46.5 million rubles, as well as 35 interactive whiteboards of
3.2 million rubles. But it is not enough; there is a lack of equipment for
physics and chemistry classrooms.
Many
school buildings are destroyed or need major repairs. According to Abdula
Magomedov[14], the CR Minister of Economic Affairs – there is a need of building 194
schools to reach the average level in
Schools
in the mountain villages are in bad condition – destroyed buildings, no heating
in some of them, no equipment and visual aids. It should be noted that the situation
has changed for the better over the summer - many schools in the mountain
villages were reconstructed, a new school is built in the Gansolchu village.
The
Civil assistance Committee has drafted a project in order to assist 19 schools
located in the mountainous areas. The French embassy allocated money for the
project. In August 2007, the repair works on the project began: the
construction of the school playground in Gansolchu village, floor repairing,
and wiring in the schools. Books for school libraries, school equipment and
musical instruments for the Vedensky Children's
Compensations
Currently,
there are two RF Government Regulations concerning compensation for lost in
The
Regulation No. 404 of July 4, 2003 determines the compensation to the residents
of
Payments
under the Regulation ¹ 510 for families, who fled
As
of October 22, 2007 by the Regulation No. 510 for period, starting in 1997, to
present day, 37,857 families received the compensation amounting to 4.02
billion rubles (11,500,000 euros). In the table below the distribution of
compensations to families is shown for each year:
|
Years |
Number of families, which
received the compensation |
|
1997 |
1,653 |
|
1998 |
6,163 |
|
1999 |
4,256 |
|
2000 |
3,957 |
|
2001 |
3,616 |
|
2002 |
7,462 |
|
2003 |
2,793 |
|
2004 |
5,200 |
|
2005 |
1,414 |
|
2006 |
1,257 |
|
2007 |
86 |
As
for the payment of compensations under the Regulation ¹ 40446939 families
received compensation amounting to 16.4 billion RR (468,500,000 euros), according
to the FMS on October 22, 2007.
In
the mean time, according to Mokhmad Ayubov, the Deputy Head of the Secretariat
for compensating, the commission received more than 250,000 applications for
full compensation for lost housing. The engineering survey group will inspect
the state of destruction, and probably more than half of them won’t be
accepted.
Compensations
for the partially destroyed dwellings are not provided, the mechanism, the
period of the reconstruction and the source of funding are not determined.
In
connection with numerous breaches, the payments have been repeatedly suspended.
The last time payments were made in November 2006.
Numerous
cases of fraud discovered in receiving compensations do not entail the
initiation of criminal cases because of statute of limitations, the affected
citizens stay with nothing[15].
The
Republic authorities promised to resume payments in the shortest possible time,
but this has not happened. According to information from the Office of the
President and the Government of the Republic, compensations are unlikely to be
paid this year – there are no resources in the republican budget.
The situation of mountain village residents
Besides
the IDPs, officially registered under the form No. 7, there is a large group of
“unaccounted migrants” in
In
most cases violence on the part of military was the cause of it. According to
the survey researches each fourth family lost one person during the military
operations, almost each man was beaten up. The biggest amount of people left
after 2002. Apparently violence against residents of mountain villages reached
an incredible level that year. The transfer from the mountains didn’t attract
the attention of community and mass media, as this transfer took place only
within
From
the 11th till 13th December, 2006 the members of Civil
Assistance Committee enquired about the
situation of the mountain village residents in Chechnya, who migrated to the
plain[16].
This
enquiry showed that in different villages the authorities are treat the
refugees differently. In the villages of Oysakhra and Noybera the authorities
registered most refugees, so they were given official documents, which could be
presented to the entitled agencies during legal checks, refugees were also
given bread. In the
We
can judge the attitude of local authorities to the refugees by the situation
with registration. The official registration is the most important problem for
all Russian citizens, as it is connected with main social rights and
guaranties.
The
most satisfactory situation with the official registration appears to be in the
The
present administration of Ilashan-Yurt refuses to allocate land plots to
refugees, where they’ve built their houses. They received these land plots for
a fixed sum of money from the previous administration of the village, or bought
from the local community. In both cases the documentation on the land plots was
not formalized. All nine families, living in those houses don’t have any
documentation on the housing, they can neither register in this accommodation,
nor sell it, and they fear evection. The head of the Ilashan-Yurta’s
administration is the person close to Ramzan Kadyrov. Anyhow he is longing to
fulfill Kadyrov’s order to make refugees go back to the mountains.
Judging
by the results of the inquiry, a considerable number of the IDPs has some
problems with the registration, which are caused by the longing of authorities
to make refugees return to their previous places of residence.
About
a half of the respondents in 8 villages got a chance to build small houses
using sun-dried bricks, but as they don’t have any registration, they can’t
consider themselves the owners of the houses. The others rent accommodation or
live with the relatives and friends.
Only
every thirtieth person among the employable refugees has a permanent job. The
others exist only by means of temporary jobs. About half of refugees have less
than 500 rubles (15 euros) per person a month.
As a
positive feature we can mark that the IDPs don’t have any big problems with the
medical aid availability. In obstetrical points they are admitted free of
charge; in the Gudermes hospital persons without registration are admitted for
reasonable price.
Secondary-level
education is also available for everybody. In spite of the fact that all local
schools are full and lessons are going three-shift, there was no refusal in
accepting children.
Some
of young people from mountain villages were not able to finish school, as there
were no lessons at schools during the military activities, many buildings were
destroyed. As there are no evening schools in most villages, young people
didn’t have an opportunity to finish their education.
In
spite of the fact that there are no private accommodation and no permanent
means of living, refugees from the mountain villages refuse to return in most
cases. The main reason is fear. They are afraid of going trough violence on the
part military, of getting under gunfire or tripping a mine.
It
is terrible to live in mountains now, even though military activities have
ended. Some mountain villages are still under air strikes. Harsh passport
checks regularly occur in villages.
In
the evening of December 1, as the result of an airborne bombardment of the
high-mountain the village of Sharo-Argun by the federal force aircraft two
natives (Gytamirovi brothers) were wounded. A young woman Zulpa Akhitiva was
blast injured. One house was practically destroyed; windows and frames were
broken in other houses.
“Last
two or three moths we live on the tinder box, - said the resident of the
village of Serjen-Yurt, to the “
General
Barayev explained the use of aircraft and artillery in the south of the
Republic by counteraction against militants, who’re trying to equip their bases
in mountain-woody districts.
On
the night of December 19, 2006 Vishan Ashanukayev and Salman Mintayev, the inhabitants of
Achhoy-Martanovsky district, were killed, Lema
Arsanukayev was injured. It happened in
The
military commandant's officer of the
The
militaries are guilty of death of two persons, but they have not received a
punishment. Investigation on the death of people was not held – no medicolegal
investigation, no splinters of a rocket from a place of incident were taken.
In
March there was another tragedy. In the Shataysky District militaries shot
women in a wood at daylight, and it is already impossible to consider it as a
result of a mistake.
In
the morning on March 24,
At
8.30 three women went to the nearest wood for wild leek. Women were dressed in
trousers, they had scarves on their heads, Haldat was wearing a light sweater,
her jacket was tied on the waist. They had walked nearly
When
shooting stopped, militaries approached to the wounded women. At first Zalpa
was lying with closed eyes, but then she frightened, that they might beat them
to death, and spoke to the militaries. She asked them why they had been shooting
them. Militaries answered, that failed to make out who had been walking, and
thought, that they were militants. Zalpa was afraid, that they might be killed,
so that there would be no witnesses left, therefore she warned them, that their
relatives had been already called for help. The senior sergeant of the group
answered: "What for did you call
them? Now we’ll start to kill each one of you”. Zalpa asked them not to
shoot the relatives coming to help, as they had no weapons.
Then
soldiers under Zalpa’s request bandaged the wounded, put them on a canvas and
carried downwards to the village. The relatives of the victims and the head of
the administration of the village were already going up. The conflict between
them and the militaries almost flashed, but first of all the relatives had to
rescue the women. They were carried to hospital. On the way Khaldat died.
Doctors were doing the operation for several hours, trying to save her, but
unsuccessfully.
On
the body of the killed Khaldat Mutakova six through wounds were discovered, a
bullet with displaced center of gravity got stuck in clothes. The orphan
teenage daughter was left alone. Kaldat was a teacher of primary school.
The
women were shot by a reconnaissance group of the military commandant's office,
the Shatoysky district, led by lieutenant colonel Korgunom. He was arrested.
The lieutenant colonel and his three soldiers were accused of reckless killing.
Nudry
Nukhaziev, Chechen ombudsmen stated[18]: «the Korguna group deliberately opened fire at the women who collected
a wild leek. Everything occured not at night but at day light, and militaries
clearly saw, that there were women in front of them, not militants. There can’t
be a mistake".
The
same opinion was stated by the member of the CR Ministry of Internal Affairs:
"Militaries perfectly know, that at this time of the year part of the
republic’s local residents are engaged in gathering wild leek in a mountains,
and militaries could have at least found out, who was in front of them before
opening fire"[19].
On
August 21st,
It
is obvious, that militaries can’t get used to peaceful life, they still
consider it to be lawful to open fire in a forest at any person, who seemed to
them suspicious without any notice.
At
the same time, it is necessary to note, that the administration of
In
spring 2007 Ramzan Kadyrov regularly visited Vvedensky, Shatoevsky,
Sharoyevsky, Itum-Kalinsky, Nozhay-Jurtovsky districts, convened Government
conferences, transfered the staff[20]. In March he raised the question of creating the conditions for
returning inhabitants of mountain areas to their native villages. The
administration of Republic negotiates with a management of the FSB about
returning the inhabitants to the near-border villages. Earlier residence there
had been recognized undesirable. So, the agreement on resettling the
Since
May
During
the summer period in mountain areas the road, bridge, office building
construction developed, schools were under repair or rebuilt. During the August
trip to the mountain areas of the Chechen Republic Elena Burtina, the head of a
Civil assistance Committee, noted:
“When
I was in the Nozhay-Jurtovsky District in May, asphalt came ended right after
the blockhouse at the district entrance. Not less then half of the road is now
asphalted to the Gansolchu village, and road works proceed. There is a new
school building in the Gansolchu village already, finishing works are going on.
It is lively in village: there are a lot of people at the school and around it.
Besides guest workers 30 local residents are working at the construction site.
The obstetric point is under repair. On a platform near the river a greater
mosque is constructed. There was a store on that place earlier. The minaret is
not finished yet, but the mosque runs already: we saw, men gathered there for
the Friday pray.
Near
the mosque the small building of rural administration was built.
In
Gansolchu the works on construction of the bridge were also started, that will
certainly promote returning of inhabitants to the part of the village, behind
the river. That side is empty now, but three families are planning to return
there in the nearest future. Under Kadyrov's order help to the inhabitants of
the village is provided by building materials. 20 families have already
received it. Another forty families are waiting for their turn. Hardly more 50
families (out of 200) returned here after the war. "
The situation of the Borozdinovskaja village in the Nadezhda camp
There
was a
That
day the village was grasped by a group of the armed people which arrived on
armor and cars. Militaries burnt down four houses, killed an old man at the age
of 70 and stole 11 young men, the destiny of which is unknown.
Later
it was found out, that a "special operation" was accomplished by the
militaries of the battalion Vostok [East]. A Record about it with
the names of all 11 stolen persons was made in the register book in the
Shelkovsky District police station the next day after the "cleaning".
However
Sulim Jamadayev, the commander of the battalion Vostok for long a time denied, that the "special operation”
was done by their division. There was no proper investigation.
In
protest the residents of the Borodzinovskaya village which had not submitted to
the abduction of relatives and fellow villagers, on June 16th left the village
and became a camp in the suburbs of the city of
The
incident was widely covered in the press; the CR authoritiest assumed emergency
measures. Alu Alhanov the President of the
Some
inhabitants were paid smart-money, but investigation did not move further, and
the residents of Borodzinovskaya again became a camp near the
The
previous year, at the day of the Borozdinovskaya tragedy anniversary,
inhabitants of the camp made an attempt to transfer tents to the Dagestan
territory. Police officers prevented it. Deputy Minister of MVD arrived at the
camp and promised the refugees to resolve their problems within several days.
Promises aren’t still acquitted, the situation of Borodzinovskaya residents
hasn’t changed.
The
second anniversary of tragedy was commemorated this year. On June 27, 2007 the
Borodzinovskaja residents held a meeting and a march of protest where almost
300 persons took part. The meeting began at 12 o'clock in territory of the camp
Nadezhda. After the meeting the
participants headed to the central park of Kizlyar. Inhabitants of the village
flatly refused to go back to their houses and demanded to inform them on the
destiny of 11 missing villagers. They also demanded to allocate the land plots
and to pay the compensation for the lost housing and property.
On
July 5 Ahmed-Nabi Magdigadzhiev, the Secretary of the Dagestan Security Council
met the initiative group of the camp Nadezhda
refugees[21]. At this meeting the Secretary of the Security Council said, that the
question on allocation of land plots to refugees is considered in the Dagestan
Government.
As
it became known later, under the initiative of Muhu Aliev, the Dagestan
President, a working group on the problem of accommodation for refugees’ families
was created to provide them with housing in the villages of the Kizljarsky
district in the Republic. In September of this year the decision was made: land
plots for construction of houses were given in several villages - Averjanovka,
Juznoe, Kosjakino, Kizlarskij. But 37 families remained in the camp waiting for
them. It was a very important decision; the problem of the Borodzinovskaja
residents at last began to be solved; now they have a place where to live. 6
square miters, 10,000 bricks and welfare assistance at the rate of 50,000
rubles (1,428 euros) were allocated for construction of a house per family.
Bricks are gradually brought, but there is no cement, needed for construction.
Ex Borodzinovskaya residents are forced to spend winter in - the same dwellings
were in the camp. Elena Burtina and Lyudmila Handel, members of the Civil
Assistance Committee visited the Borodzinovskaja residents on their new place
of residence in October of this year and transferred them welfare assistance
from the organization. 10,000 rubles (286 euros) per family.
Regarding
the other requirement of Borodzinovskaya residents – information about the
destiny of 11 abducted - Magdikhatdyiev said on a meeting on July 5th:
"Concerning the destiny of 11 missing villagers, I should say, that the
fact of the “cleaning” by the battalion Vostok,
which is subjected to the GRU, is determined. And we can only ask the present
federal authorities about the information on the results of the check".
In
autumn 2006 42 Borozdinovskaya inhabitants claimed to the Ministry of Defense
of Russia for a sum of 126 million rubles a compensation for the held
“cleaning”. Judicial hearings passed in the Presnensky court of Moscow. The
court examined each of the 42 Borodzinovskaya residents’ claims separately.
On
January 25th, 2007 the court rejected the first claim, in which an inhabitant
of the village of Uzeyru Abuliyev asked 3 million rubles compensation. The
court considered, that by the claimant had not proved, that actions of the
Ministry of Defense made him suffer morally, and it could be estimated in 3
million rubles, and documentary acknowledgement of harm to health was not
presented.
The
prospects of the Borozdinivskaya inhabitants’ claim satisfaction to the RF
Ministry of Defence are insignificant. Further claimants plan to appeal to the
European Court of human rights.
Illegal
detentions and torture of civilians
In
spite of the sudden reduction of a number of abductions during this year, the
security problem continues to be of current importance for people of Chechnya.
The fear of armed men dressed in khaki, who come in need of search to the
houses of the inhabitants, grimed to the souls of people, there is no hope to
avoid it. Let me give an example.
On
August 18,
Examples
of violence concerning civilians on the part the representatives of the
law-enforcement agencies – illegal detentions and torture with the aim to knock
out statements – continue even now.
On
July 10, 2007 the representatives of the unstated law-enforcement department
(admittedly the MVD of CR) illegally detained and subjected to torture Minkail
Akbulatov in the village of Shatoy. Minkail Akbulatov – a professional
bricklayer, married, has a child.
In
the afternoon on July 10, afternoons, unknown persons came to the building
site, where he was working, introduced themselves as law-enforcement officers,
but they didn’t produce their documents. They said to Akbulatov: “We have some
business to you, follow us”. He was placed into the car, they bended his head
to his laps so tht he shouldn’t see the route and a cap was fitted on his head
lest he should see.
By
some indications Minkail realized, that he had been driven to the village
Zakan-Yurt, the Achkhoy-Martanovsky District. There he was taken to some place
and he was recommended to tell all he knew about militants. The questioners
spoke only in Chechen. Akbulatov answered, that he didn’t know anything. “A
month ago the militants came and spent a night at your place in the village of
Day.”... Akbulatov explained that he actually worked at the building site of a
private house in the village of Day, Shatorsky district. However, 2 months had
passed already since had finished working there and he didn’t go there anymore.
“We will struggle you with current, you will tell us everything”.
The
detained was undressed, his arms and legs were tied together, he was laid on
the bed and his body was winded with the wires. Then they started switching on
the current. After each switch they gave him a 5-minute break and asked again:
“And now, don’t you have anything to tell us?” At that they mentioned an emir
Yusup Satoev, they threatened him with killing, they clicked the shutter near
his temple. And then they continued switching the current on and off.
Between
the intervals of being beaten with the current, the deferred was beaten. Then
the bag was put on his head and they started to throttle him. He was demanded
to agree to secretly cooperation and to give them all the information about the
militants. But his answer was always the same: “I can’t work with you – I know
nothing about the militants”
Soon
Akbulatov realized that if the torture continue he will die. Maybe, it was
obvious even for the executioners. The torture were stopped, a black
polyethylene bag was put on his head, and he was placed into the car and driven
back to Shatoi. On the way back they forced Akbulatov to secretly cooperate
with them.
The
car arrived at Shatoi in 20 hours. At the end of the road Akbulatov was forced
to sign some document with the bag on his head. Then he was pushed out of the
car.
Akbulatov
went to the regional hospital at once, where the doctors registered the signs
of torture and extracted anesthetic medicine. The following day, relatives took
him for treatment to hospital of Grozny. In spite of the offerings of doctors
to stay, he refused hospitalization.
The
members of Memorial saw Akbulatov after the release, his physical state was
very difficult – he could hardly get round on his own.
Minkail
Akbulatov and his relatives are afraid of making a report to the Prosecutor’s
Office on the illegal actions of the law-enforcement officers.
On
July 18, 2007 at the police station of the village of the Gerzel Gudermessky
district Suliman S. Yushayev, an inhabitant of the village of Melchu Khe was
detained.
That
day Yushayev was driving in his lorry to Hasavyurt, the Dagestan Reoublic to
buy some bricks for sale (he traded with construction materials). At the
Gerzelsky station he was stopped for breaking traffic regulations, and he was
sent to the Koshkildy OVD for identification.
The
next day there was a search at the Yushyaevs’. Suliman didn’t take part in the
search. As it was noticed later, Yushayev wasn’t brought there because he was
badly mauled. According of Ushayev’s relatives and his advocate he was
subjected to cruel torture. He was subjected to current, beatings. As a result,
his back was covered with large hematomas. Suliman wasn’t able to open his
mouth and speak, he became 50% deaf, and his head was awfully swelled. He
wasn’t able to get round on his own.
During
the cross-examination Ushayev had to give the statements, which he had had a
telephone call with Ediyev, another inhabitant of the village Melchu Khe, who
was subjected to an arrest warrant as a participant of an illegal armed group
(IAG). Ushayev was served with charges on helping and abetting the IAGs.
July,
20 Ushayev had to be brought to court in Gudermes to choose the preventive
measures. The court has been postponed, as the accused hadn’t been delivered.
The probable reason to that was his unsatisfactory physical state. The arrested
person was at the Gudermes ROVD. His fellow villagers characterize Ushayev as a
calm person and a law-abiding citizen.
Ushayev’s
mother addressed Memorial to help her in determining and punishing the persons,
who tortured her son.
The
prosecution of the Chechen refugees who emigrated from Russia
The
Chechens who emigrated from Russia are exposed to mortal danger even during a
short visit home. The arrival of a person who had been away for a long period
of time is taken on a notice by law-enforcement agencies at once. He interests
them like as a militant, who was hiding in the woods or as a rich man, living
abroad, for whom they can receive ransom. A real threat of abduction, torture
and even murders hangs above everyone who returns from emigration.
Three
examples of it: the detentions of Rustam M., Beslan Gadayev and the execution
of Magomed Gabuyev – are mentioned in the second section of this report.
Memorial HRC documented two other similar cases, which had taken place not so
long ago.
On
August 28,
The
officers of the force structure arrived at the village on two cars UAZ and VAZ
– 2100. They rushed into the house, without any explanations they seized Muslim
Akhmatov and began to deduce him into the street. Muslim’s mother, Hava, tried
to stop them, but she was also hard beaten and fell. The militaries kicked the
lying woman several times. Muslim also tried resist to the abductors.
The
neighbors gathered together, hearing the noise. One of them, Magomed Kakhirov,
a security guard of the Prime Minister of the CR Baisultanov administration,
wished to interfere into the situation, but he was stopped by the precautionary
shots. Akhmatov had his hands wrapped round, had his mouth sealed up and he had
been placed into the car. He managed to liberate his hands and tried to escape.
One of the abductors shot at Akhmatov from submachine gun and wounded him in
the stomach. The bullet has passed his body through and damaged some internal
organs. He was dragged to the car again and was driven to Gudermes.
The
inhabitants of the village, who followed the abductors, were able to determine
that the cars arrived at the territory of the Gudermes FSB. Soon the emergency
was called. They brought Akhmatov to the city hospital. In hospital Akhmatov
was subject to an operation and was placed to the resuscitation department
under the protection. This protection was carried out by the officers of the
Gudermes ROVD. The policemen told the Akhmatov’s relatives that they were
placed there for security of the wounded.
That
very day an investigatory group arrived at Ilashan-Yurt and interrogated the
witnesses of the incident. On the given facts the regional Prosecutor’s
initialed a criminal case.
In
the beginning of the second military campaign Muslim left Chechnya for England,
where he lived up to recently. Muslim came back home to marry. In the beginning
of August of this year he married the daughter of a retired general of MVD and
was already ready to go back to the GB.
According
to fellow villagers, Muslim didn’t take any participation in military actions.
Those, who know this family well consider, that the only possible motive for
Muslim’s abduction was the ransom.
On
July 22, 2007, under the obscure circumstances Umar Alievich Buchaev ,one of
the native inhabitants of this village, disappeared. That day at about 7 p.m.
Buchaev left the house of his parents and went directly to his aunt’s place in
the same village. However he didn’t reach his aunt’s house and he didn’t
returned home that night. The subsequent searches of Umar, organized by his
parents gave no results. It turned out to be impossible to find witnesses
disappearance.
On
July 8, 2007 Umar Buchaev visited his parents. Last five years he had been
living in Norway. Relatives consider him to be abducted. As of September 30 his
location is unknown.
The
danger of prosecution from the part of law-enforcement agencies and special
services are exposed to the refugees, living abroad. We shall tell you about 2
cases.
Since
December 4, 2006 Murad Gasayev, 1974, the inhabitant of Nazran’ who lives in
Spain legally, is held in custody in that country. Gasayev has been detained by
the authorities of Spain on the inquiry of the Prosecutor’s Office to surrender
him.
Murad
Gasayev left with family for Spain in May, 2005 on the insistence of his
parents. Their fears for his safety were caused by his religiousness, he
observed all ceremonies and regularly visited mosque, and this causes
suspicions in law enforcement agencies. After an attack of militants on
Ingushetia all young men were under suspicion, if they were strictly adhering
religious canons. Murad – a peaceful and respectable family man, he worked in
the Ingush Republican Public Fund “Technology” from 2002 to 2005.
In
February, 2006, Gasayev’s parents learned from the newspaper, that their son is
in search as a militant. It was found out, that during the interrogation, one
of arrested persons, being under torture, slandered Gasayev as a participant of
the attack on Ingushetia. The investigation was held in Vladikavkaz and was
conducted by the Krivorotov’s group, well- known for its brutality. Later the
person who had slandered Gasayev refused his previous testimony in the court.
In
Spain Murad Gasayev was given a lawyer who helps him to achieve the refusal of
ex-tradition to Russia.
Gasayev’s
mother is afraid, that after the ex-tradition he will be subjected to torture
and will slander himself. She has applied to Memorial HRC about legal aid for
her son.
A terrible fate befell a Chechen refugee who had fled to Azerbaijan.
On November 17, 2006, it
became known that 31-year-old refugee from Chechnya Ruslan Eliyev (born 1975) went missing in unclear circumstances in
Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku.[22]
The
Council of Non-Governmental Organizations passed on the information that Eliyev
for several years before his disappearance had lived in Baku as a refugee and
was registered with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR). His wife and his three small children stayed together with
him in Azerbaijan.
His
relatives said that in the afternoon of November 9, Ruslan called them and said
he was going to be home soon; however, he disappeared
without a trace.
In the early January 2007, the Chechen Refugee Council in Azerbaijan
appealed to Mr. António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees,
and to the President of Azerbaijan Ilkham Aliyev, asking them to launch an
inquiry into the abduction of the mandate refugee in the territory of Azerbaijan
and keep the public informed of the progress of the investigation. However, no
response has been received to this appeal.
In late March, several mutilated bodies were discovered in the woods
near the village of Samashki in Chechnya. The bodies had been thrown down from
Russian helicopters[23]. They were stuffed into bags. Some local residents had seen how those
bags had been dropped down over the woods. The body of Ruslan Eliyev was
identified among the bodies of victims that had been discovered.
The bodies found in the Samashki forest showed signs of terrible torture
inflicted on those people before they were killed. Ruslan Eliyev’s body had the
nails torn out and the eyes poked out. There were terrible burns across his
entire body; the fingers were broken and the ears and the nose were cut off.
Harassment and killings have not stopped and there is no guarantee
against a new wave of reprisals. Some real effort should be taken to make sure
that the crimes committed in the past are investigated and solved. Only then
can one hope for Chechnya making a transition from a society governed by force
to a society ruled by law.
Investigations
into the crimes committed by officers from law-enforcement agencies
The crimes perpetrated by officers from security agencies have not been
investigated thus far and their perpetrators have continued to serve with their
security agencies.
An illustrative case is that of the killing of resident of the town of
Argun Abdulbek Abzuyev. In 2005,
this man was abducted, very badly beaten and then strangled by troops from
Kadyrov’s security service, officers of the Anti-Terror Center.
The prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case; suspects have been
identified. One of them, Sultan Buluyev, currently serves with the A.Kadyrov
Police Patrol and Point Duty Service Regiment, while the other two suspects,
Anzor Batayev and Arbi Mamayev, are servicemen of the Yug [South] VV MVD [Interior Ministry Forces] Battalion. For twelve
months now, investigators from the prosecutor’s office can’t take appropriate
investigative actions relating to these persons.
Meanwhile, the mother of the killed person, Saman Abzuyeva, who witnessed the abduction and sought
investigation of the crime, has been subjected to demonstrative threats and
attacks. The abductors of her son have repeatedly threatened the 76-year-old
woman and tried to drive her away to some place. On January 9, 2007, she
was attacked when she was walking to
the market place. A car pulled up beside her and several young men, whom she
knows by name, since they live in her neighborhood, got out of it. They knocked
her off her feet and gave her several blows on the body and on the head.
Doctors stated that Abzuyeva had been caused great nervous distress,
high arterial blood pressure, heart trouble and major hematomas on the inner
side of thighs. Now the elderly woman is afraid to go out and even when at home
she does not feel safe.
No investigation has been
carried out into the terrible incident of shooting a large group of unarmed
young men, which took place in July 2006. As
a result of a provocation, the organizers of which are still unknown, officers
from security agencies shot dead 13 Chechen young men and teenagers. This
bloodshed was presented to journalists as a major special operation to eliminate
militants.
In
fact, approximately 20 young men and teenagers from several villages of the
Khasavyurt District of Dagestan were lured by two recruiters and brought
together into a group supposedly for a trip to the seaside. In the afternoon of
July 12, they were gathered together, but led in a different direction – from
Dagestan towards the border with Chechnya. At the border, they were forced to
change clothes into khaki uniforms and cartridges were stuffed into their
pockets. On the night of July 12-13,
2006, when it was crossing the administrative border, the group was fired
on from an ambush by officers from security agencies. Thirteen persons were
killed. The young men offered no armed resistance. Two boys, the eldest in the
group, were 26 and 27 years old; the others were aged between 13 and 19. Two
days later, the dead bodies of the killed persons were returned to relatives
for burial.
Five
boys were wounded and survived by a miracle. They were detained, prosecuted and
sentenced to prison terms of between eight and twelve months for participation
in an illegal armed group, of which they were members for just 40 minutes.
From August 16 to 18, 2006, Member of the
Human Rights Council at the RF President Svetlana Gannushkina together with
lawyer of the Migration Rights Network Rasiyat Yasiyeva made trips to several
villages of the Khasavyurt District of Dagestan. In those villages they visited
17 families which lost their sons in the July tragedy.
It
was found out that no officals had visited relatives of the killed persons;
investigators had not examined them; and no criminal case of any any sort had
been opened into the murder of the young people (for more details see Appendix 2).
The investigation of the
criminal case into the abduction of our staffer Bulat Chilayev in Sernovodsk has yielded no results. He was abducted together with his friend, Aslan Israilov, by the
military on April 9, 2006, at an entry to the Rostov-Baku Highway. The efforts
to establish the identities of the abductors have yielded no results. Petitions
to leaders of the MVD and FSB of Chechnya, commanders of the Combined Force in
Chechnya and directly to Ramzan Kadyrov have yielded no results.
Bulat’s father, Sultan Chilayev, a lawyer by training, carried out his
own investigation: he examined witnesses and established the license numbers of
the vehicles on which the abductors drove off. He also managed to find out that
a commissioned officer’s identification tag had been discovered at the crime
scene and learn the name of the person to whom it belonged. It was a serviceman
of Zapad [West] battalion Ilias Bukulov.
The
prosecutor’s office could not interrogate Bukulov, since he was said to be very
busy with his official duties. In September 2006, he died in action and no
testimony could be taken from him.
There is still no information about the fate of Bulat and Aslan.
Apparently, they were murdered right after the abduction. Bulat was survived by
wife and a small daughter.
In July this year, Bulat’s 50-year-old father died. Just a year ago, he
was a healthy strong man. The abduction and the murder of his son had crippled
him.
For two years now, the military prosecutor’s
office has been investigating the above mentioned case on zachistka (a mop-up operation) in the village of Borozdinovskaya
on June 4, 2005. The military columnist for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta Vyacheslav Izmailov
clarified the peculiar features of court proceedings in the case[24]:
“The Grozny Garrison Military
Court at the suggestion of the prosecutor’s office divided the incident into
two separate crime incidents: the first incident – an unlawful mop-up operation and the second incident – the death and the disappearance of people,
without linking the two incidents together.”
As a result of the investigation into the first incident, ñompany
commander of the Vostok Batallion
Mukhadi Aziyev was given a two-year suspended sentence for abuse of authority. In spite of his conviction, he continues to
serve in the same position.
And the second incident, the killing of one villager and the
disappearance of 11 residents of Borozdinovskaya, as Izmailov writes, “has been
attributed to imaginary militants, who supposedly entered the village already
after the Vostok Batallion’s troops
left it”.
For two years, various law-enforcement agencies and military departments
have been claiming to be searching for the 11 abducted persons. According to
the response given in mid-May 2007 to the Committee agaist Torture by Diakov,
Assistant Military Prosecutor of the Combined Force[25], “…
the FSB of Russia Directorate for the Chechen Republic, the Task Force of the
Military Counterintelligence Department of the FSB of Russia in the North
Caucasus Region of the RF, the Temporary Task Group of Agencies and Departments
of the RF MVD in the CR and the Shelkovskaya ROVD
have been directed towards the search efforts for the disappeared”.
Over
the recent months, certain changes have taken place in the operations of the CR
Prosecutor’s Office, which was noted in a Bulletin by Memorial HRC[26]:
“…
Cases that usually remain uninvestigated are those involving the crimes
committed by federal security agencies. On the other hand, it is precisely now
that… the prosecutor’s office has made progress in investigating a number of
crimes committed in the recent years by officers from the CR security
agencies.”
On December 26, 2006,
sentences were passed on eighteen former officers of the Anti-Terror Center, the Second Police Patrol and Point Duty
Service Regiment (PPSM-2), and other police
units controlled by Ramzan Kadyrov (Chapanov,
Abuzidov, Burkhanov, Edishev, Kashtarov, Soltakhanov, and others). In 2004
– 2006, they formed a stable gang and robbed local residents when on duty.
In mid-March 2007, the prosecutor’s office opened a criminal case into the beating by field
investigators from ORB-2 of a resident the village of Goiskoye, Ramzan Khasiyev[27].
On May 24, 2007, the republican prosecutor’s office made public the details of the
freshly completed investigation that targeted former Police Lieutenant Ruslan Asuyev. In 2005, he held the
position of deputy company commander at the contract security control regiment
at the MVD of Chechnya. Ruslan Asuyev is suspected in organizing a criminal
group, which brought together former militants who were included in the amnesty,
police officers and ordinary citizens. The group was responsible for murders of
civilians, abductions for ransom, and aggravated robberies (assaults).
In
January 2007, two members of Asuyev’s gang,
Islam Agayev and Aslan Dzhamulayev,
were already sentenced in this case to long imprisonment terms. Agayev was sentenced to 13 years’
imprisonment and Dzhamulayev – to 12.5 years.”
Details of the Asuyev case
have been published in all national newspapers and posted on Web-sites in the
Internet[28]. Appendix 3 gives a brief description of this case.
As for court cases launched against commissioned officers of the Russian
Armed Forces, there are just two of them: the Budanov case and the Ulman case.
Also targeted in the Ulman
case together with Ulman himself are Lieutenant Aleksandr Kalagansky, warrant officer Vladimir Voyevodin, and Major Aleksey
Perelevsky. They are accused of killing six peaceful
citizens of Chechnya.
In April 2007, after the procsecution presented its case, three of the
charged persons, except for Aleksey Perelevsky, disappeared without a trace.
On June 14, sentences were passed on those three defendants in their
absence, in a rare case for the Russian court practice. Aleksey Perelevsky was
sentenced to 9 years in maximum security penal colony and Eduard Ulman – to 14
years in maximum security penal colony. Lieutenant Aleksandr Kalagansky got 11
eleven years and warrant officer Vladimir Voyevodin was sentenced to 12 years.
The convicted persons were put on the federal wanted list (for more details of the Budanov case see
article by Svetlana Gannushkina in Appendix 4).
The trial of former MVD commissioned officer Sergey Lapin continues. In 2005, he was already sentenced by the
Oktyabrsky District Court of the city of Grozny to 11 years in prison for
infliction of great bodily harm to 30-year-old resident of Grozny Zelimkhan
Murdalov and for abuse of authority and forgery by an official in relation to
the disappearance of the victim. That case was investigated only thanks to the
efforts of Anna Politkovskaya, whom Lapin threatened with punishment. However,
the verdict was overturned by the ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian
Federation and a retrial of the case was ordered.
Lapin
is held in custody and the crime accomplices, his former commanders Lieutenant
Colonel Valery Minin and Major Aleksandr Prilepin, went on the run and
were put on the federal wanted list[29].
Servicemen
of the Russian Interior Ministry Forces Sergey Arakcheyev and Yevgeny
Khudyakov, who are accused of killing three peaceful citizens of Chechnya, have
been twice cleared by the jury. The Military Board of the RF Supreme Court
twice overturned the verdict and ordered the court to retry the case.
While the Russian system of justice is very reluctant to investigate
crimes committed by the military againt civilians, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) deliveres more and more
judgments on complaints by residents of Chechnya[30].
During five months of 2007, from May to September, five
new judgments were made, in which the ECHR had
found Russia guilty of violating The European Convention for the Protection of
Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The complaints by residents of Chechnya
that had been examined dealt with abductions of people by public officers,
disappearances of detained persons, torture, and extrajudicial killings. A total of 14 judgments were released by
the ECHR, as of September 2007, on the complaints by
residents of the CR and in all of the judgments the Russian authorities had
been found guilty of violating the European Convention and in particular its
Article 2 (right to life), Article 5 (right to liberty and security), and
Article 13 (right to an effective remedy before a national court).
However, the Russian authorities have taken a rather lopsided approach
to implementing rulings of the European Court.
The applicants are paid fully and in a timely
manner the ordered sums of money damages. Criminal cases are reinvestigated. However, these investigations are carried out
pro forma and drag on for unreasonable periods of time. Despite the obvious
involvement of specific public officers in crimes, not a single one of them has
been criminally prosecuted. The fate of
not a single ‘disappeared’ person about whom rulings of the
ECHR were issued, has been established. This is not to mention that no efforts have
been taken to introduce any changes into the statutory regulations which govern
the actions of security departments within the zones of internal conflicts
(laws on combating terrorism and the Armed Forces manuals). In fact, the need
to introduce such changes directly follows from some of the rulings of the
ECHR.
Reprisals against and extrajudicial killings of civilians suspected of contacts with militants
It has been impossible so far “to close the books on the tragic streak
in the history of the Chechen people, once and for all”, as Ramzan Kadyrov
intends. Using their habitual methods of violence, the republican government
agencies themselves prompt the youth to join the militants.
Talking to residents of Grozny during her July trip, the Director of
Demos Center Tatiana Lokshina learned about a wide-spread technique of
recruiting young men used by officers from secret services[31].
Young people are seized right from fixed-route minibus taxis; they are
badly beaten and threatened with torture to force them to supply information on
militants and sign an obligation to cooperate. Lokshina cites an account by a
resident of Grozny telling about what has happened to her son. In June this
year, her elder son together with his male friend were pulled out of a minibus
by some people with automatic rifles, dressed in civvies, and not a single
person in the overcrowded bus dared to stand up for them. The boys were dragged
out onto the road, kicked and hit with rifle butts and then were forced into
the attackers’ vehicle. They were driven to some headquarters (to all
appearances, it was the Grozny OBOP (Department for Combating Organized
Crime)). There they were beaten within an inch of their lives. An ‘infernal
machine’ was brought to torture them by electric shocks and under threats the
boys were forced to sign an obligation to cooperate and inform on their
friends. Her son does not go outside since then.
Lokshina remarks: “For some time, they simply go into hiding, stay
overnight with friends or relatives and then they realize that there is no
way-out: either you “go to the woods” or become a rat or you might get
imprisoned for some 15 to 20 years – some friends are already serving their
terms. Many opt for the ‘woods’. And had they been left alone, they would have lived peaceful lives at
their homes.”
Member of Parliament Magomed Khambiyev said at a parliamentary meeting
that, according to the information that has not been properly verified, from
January to April this year, about three hundred young men joined the militants.
Some of them were as young as 15 to 16 years old.
According to the information available to Memorial HRC, on May 19, 2007,
the CR Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov and the CR Vice-Premier Adam Delimkhanov met relatives of
the persons who were on the wanted list in the assembly hall of the CR Interior Ministry’s building in the city of
Grozny.
No practical or fruitful discussion took place. It was Adam Delimkhanov
who mostly did the talking. His entire speech was no more than just threats.
He said that no quarter would be given to any one of those who had gone
to the mountains [to join the militants]. Should they be caught by security
agencies, “they would have their heads cut off”. No quarter would be given to
their families, either. Delimkhanov promised and Alkhanov reiterated that
masked security officers would burst at night time into those houses of people
who had joined the militants which supply them with food and clothes. Punished
would also be the neighbors who were definitely aware of the plans of those who
left their homes.
These terrible threats, voiced by top leaders of the Republic, usher in
a new wave of lawlessness. The CR Interior
Minister has in effect legalized the criminal practices of extrajudicial killings.
Memorial has obtained the information that on July 20 this year,
officers from local security agencies carried out the extrajudicial killing of a resident of the village of Yalkhoi-Mokhk, let's call her Laura, in the notorious village of
Tsentoroi.
On July 19, three militants came to Laura’s house. They demanded that
she open the food kiosk she owned and bought some food products from her. On
that same night, a shoot-out with militants took place in the vicinity of the
village of Yalkhoi-Mokhk. According to some reports, three members of the armed
resistance were killed. In the afternoon of July 19, Laura was interrogated at
the district office of FSB. She was accused of supplying militants with food;
however, she was not detained on that day.
In the morning of July 20, Laura was summoned for interrogation to the
Kurchaloi District ROVD. Laura’s senior brother drove her there himself. After
the interrogation, the woman was taken from the ROVD building to the village of
Tsentoroi. Her relatives were not informed of that. On that same day, her
relatives were requested to take home the dead body of Laura. The woman’s body
showed signs of torture and fractures. Her head was smashed in with bullets
from automatic weapons. When the woman’s dead body was handed over to her
family members, officers from security agencies warned them that they would
kill Laura’s four brothers, if any official funeral was held. They were warned
against telling anybody about this incident.
The military presence has
been stepped up in the mountainous areas.
Carrying out of the threats of reprisals against relatives of the militants has
been started. Below is an extract from Yelena Burtina’s August account of her
trip to Chechnya: “About two months ago, the house of a woman whose son had
shortly before left home to join the militants was burned down in the village
of Gansolchu. This woman’s husband fought on the Russian side in the first war
and was killed. This fact did not stop the military from driving his widow and
children out of their house at night and setting the house on fire.
Construction workers from a school construction site put out the fire; however,
all property and the monetary compensation the woman had received shortly
before were destroyed in fire. The woman left for some place together with her
children. And that son of hers who joined the militants has obviously got a new
strong impetus to pursue armed struggle.”
In this way, the Chechen authorities, having halted the practice of
abducting people, are opening a new channel for unlawful punitive violence
against civilians.
The course towards building a peaceful life that has been proclaimed by
Ramzan Kadyrov continues to be based on violence.
IV. Situation of people from Chechnya in the Republic of Ingushetia
In
1999, when the second military campaign was started, Ingushetia, the smallest
of the Caucasian republics, accepted up to 300,000 of Chechen refugees. Of them
30,000 persons lived in tent camps; 32,000 persons resided in rented rooms; and
the rest lived with their relatives or friends. Those people were ready to face
any hardships, just to get security guarantees. Ingushetia was an island of
salvation for them. Unfortunately, this is not so today. Over the past three
years, the level of lawlessness and violence against civilians in Ingushetia
came close to the level of lawlessness in Chechnya and in 2007 even surpassed
it.
In
May
Starting
from autumn 2005, CAPs came under threat of closure. The Chief Sanitary Officer
of the RI issued a resolution on shutting down the operations of CAPs because
of their failure to meet sanitary standards. It should be noted that the
unsuitability of that housing for living and its substandard sanitary
conditions were known in advance – when people were being moved into the CAPs.
However, this circumstance was not taken into consideration back then.
The
process of shutting down CAPs was slowed down; nevertheless, during the past
two years most of the CAPs were closed.
In
December 2006, there were just 32 CAPs for IDPs from Chechnya officially
operating in the territory of the Republic, while in 2005 there were 86 of
them.
As
of February 28, 2007, there were 17,492 IDPs
from Chechnya officially registered in Ingushetia – the figures are cited
according the database run by the Danish Refugee Council
(DRC). Of them 4,687 persons were housed in CAPs and 12,805 persons were in private accommodation.
According
to the information of the RI UFMS, as of the beginning of February 2007, there
were 8,662 IDPs remaining in the territory of Ingushetia. Of them 4,078 persons
resided in CAPs and 4,584 persons lived in private accommodation [32].
Return of IDPs to the Chechen Republic
In summer 2006, Ingushetia
was often visited by administration heads of districts and towns of Chechnya,
who tried to persuade people to return home. According to one of those
officials, each of them was instructed by Kadyrov to ensure the return to
Chechnya of all IDPs from the district under the person’s in question
jurisdiction. They were threatened that otherwise they could “lose their
seats”.
At
an agitation rally held by Tamazi Gaurgayev, administration head of the
Oktyabrsky District of the city of Grozny, on August 2, 2006, at LogoVAZ CAP,
Gaurgayev at a certain moment lost patience and said literally the following:
“Humanitarian
assistance from UFMS both in Ingushetia and in Chechnya will be discontinued to
those who do not return to Chechnya before the end of autumn 2006 and land
plots that are registered in their names in Chechnya will be taken away from
them.”
The
IDPs, who were alarmed by such statements, thought it would be better to return
to Chechnya. They reported later that upon their return they found that nobody
needed them there. TAPs in Chechnya clearly did not provide enough
accomodation; their superintendents themselves were frank about it. The newly
arrived were immediately warned that they could stay at TAPs for no longer than
a month, after which period thay would have to seek accommodation themselves
elsewhere. The question of who would pay for such housing was not even
discussed and nobody even mentioned the compensation that had been promised.
Officials did not respond to requests or met them with rudeness. Of those who
left only 21 families managed to return to Ingushetia and have themselves put
back on the lists of the FMS of Ingushetia.
Of
great help to the returning people were the prefabricated panel houses provided
by UNHCR, which were installed near their houses for the period until their
construction or re-building was completed.
In September 2006, UNHCR workers interviewed members of 163 families
from the list submitted by the Government of the Chechen Republic. The bulk of
the list was made up of families living in CAPs in Ingushetia, who were willing
to return and needed temporary accommodation to resettle.
Of
the 163 families that were interviewed, 90 have been found ready for the return
and needing temporary accommodation. On September 21, 2006, UNHCR acting
through its executive partners, the non-governmental organization Vesta and the
Caucasian Refugee Council (CRC), started distribution of prefabricated panel
houses (box tents) to 90 families. Families of up to seven persons are eligible
for one prefabricated panel house, while families that have more than seven
members may get two such houses.
Humanitarian Assistance
The
volume of humanitarian assistance to IDPs was greatly reduced during the past
year. Assistance of the Danish Refugee Council is
provided to those who are under 20 or over 50 years old and also to large
families and disabled persons.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) distribiutes
humanitarian assistance to large families (five children and more), families with
Category One or Two Disabled persons and families of pensioners (people aged
over 65). In addition to food assistance, ICRC also provides personal-care
products and distributes bedclothes and blankets and clothes and footwear for
school students.
The authorities have continuously denied the International Rescue
Committee (IRC) official registration. In fact, it was the IRC that provided
sanitation services in the camps in Ingushetia and after its operations were
halted, garbage started to pile up immediately. Cesspools of shower rooms and
laundry rooms in some CAPs are not emptied any more and these CAPs came under
threat of closure.
Provision of assistance granted through the channels of the RI UFMS
continues to remain the most severe problem as far as the distribution of
humanitarian assistance is concerned. It is distributed with many months’
delays – between 7 and 10 months. FMS officers themselves explain these delays
by the fact that during the summer and autumn period they were busy providing
humanitarian assistance to people returning to the Chechen Republic; therefore
they did not have enough funds for those IDPs who stayed in Ingushetia.
Starting from November 2006, clearance of the arrears was started.
Health Care
The health care situation greatly worsened during the past year. Just a
year ago, patients at CAPs were received by mobile medical teams of doctors
from international organizations. Today, after their operations in Ingushetia
were halted, IDPs are more often than not deprived of basic medical assistance.
At larger centers for IDPs there is a chance that at least one person
with medical background could be found, who could provide assistance in case of
emergency. However, residents of remote CAPs, where no ‘paramedic’ could be
found, are hard put to get medical assistance. If someone from among the
residents of such camps urgently needs a doctor during night time he or she
would have noone and nowhere to turn. They are, in their own words, “living and
hoping for the God’s help… ”. IDPs residing in larger CAPs have the opportunity
of call in an ambulance and usually they don’t get refusals in such situations.
Education
Approximately
800 children of IDPs in Ingushetia have been successfully integrated into the
republican system of general education, in many ways thanks to the support from
the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). UNICEF has distributed to local
schools 460 sets of school furniture and provided school uniforms and winter
footwear to children from the poorer families of IDPs.
Generally,
local shools enroll all children of school age without any particular problems.
The only problem is that in some population centers shools are located far away
from CAPs and children have to travel long distances to get there. The cost of
transportation between homes and shools is 10 rubles (0.28 euros) per one
school student per day, which is often beyond their means for large families;
therefore, children often skip classes.
Safety in CAPs
The situation with security in CAPs has greatly worsened since the
beginning of 2007. During this period, security agencies dramatically
intensified their activities. Usually they involved numerous incidents of
wanton violence, illegal detentions and other gross violations of civil rights.
Officers from security
agencies have shown particular interest towards residents of UMS Mekhstroi CAP,
located in the stanitsa of Ordzhonikidzevskya (Sleptsovskaya). Since the beginning of the year, the
camp has seen several harsh operations which could not be seen as an ordinary
passport check.
The first such operation was conducted on the night of January 10–11,
2007. At around three in the morning, officers from an unknown security agency
arrived to UMS Mekhstroi camp,
located at the stanitsa. Some of them wore camouflage uniforms; others were in
civvies. Some of them hid their faces behind masks; however, most of them were
unmasked. The officers did not introduce themselves; however witnesses claim
that between themselves they spoke in three languages: Russian, Chechen and
Ingush.
The document checks and room searches continued until
On January 27, at around 1.30 p.m., armed people
dressed in camouflage uniforms and wearing masks again appeared on the premises
of UMS Mekhstroi camp. After sealing
off the entire settlement, they ordered everyone at gunpoint not to leave their
rooms and not to look out. Officers from security agencies arrested Malika
Chabiyeva and drove her away in an unknown direction.
According to Malika’s sister, Aza Chabiyeva, 10 minutes into the
operation, the door to her room was half-opened and Malika handed in her keys
and said: “They are taking me with them”. To the question “Why?” she said, “I
don’t know; it must be some mistake.” Malika’s five-year-old daughter was
handed over to Aza.
Immediately after Malika was driven away, Aza went to
the Sunzha District Prosecutor’s Office to file a statement about the arrest of
her sister.
One of the officers at the prosecutor’s office
discouraged her from filing such statement, saying that there was no need to do
it. In Aza’s presence, he spoke to someone over the telephone and told her
after hanging up that Malika Chabiyeva had been detained by officers from the UFSB
(Federal Security Service Directorate) for Ingushetia. According to him, she
was undergoing a routine check and would be released in some time.
The reassured woman went home; however, on her way
there she learned that another sister of hers, Asya, was also arrested,
together with her employer, a woman who owned a café where she worked,
named Roza Seinaroyeva. The two women were driven to the FSB building.
Asya Chabiyeva was questioned about Malika’s contacts, about her job and
activities, about where she was in 1996-1997, and whether Asya knew her female
friends. The most important thing they wanted to know, however, was whether
Asya Chabiyeva knew a woman named Elbika. Asya was shown a photograph on a PC
monitor and Asya recognized a woman she had seen several times when that woman
was coming to Malika Chabiyeva’s place together with her daughter, asking
Malika to take the child to a kindergarten. That woman rented accommodation
somewhere in the stanitsa of Ordzhonikidzevskya. The Chabiyev sisters, both
Malika and Asya, knew that Elbika was hiding from the Russian authorities
because her husband was a member of the Chechen resistance.
It emerged soon afterwards that Malika had been taken from Ingushetia to
the FSB SIZO for the Krasnodar Krai (Territory). As early as on January
This disinformation was due to the fact that Elbika sent to the FSB a
videorecording in which she confessed to having carried out the explosion after
two other innocent women were detained in this case.
When examining the video recording, FSB officers spotted in the
background a figure of a woman who they thought looked like Malika Chabiyeva.
Asya and Aza, who came to Krasnodar, did not recognize their sister in
the woman on the tape; they asked to release her and got a strange response:
she would be released only in exchange for Elbika.
On March 21, 2007, the Chabiyev sisters approached the
head of the Migration Rights Network Svetlana Gannushkina and asked her to help
Malika during her visit to Ingushetia, where she met relatives of abducted
persons.
To defend Malika Chabiyeva’s rights our
Krasnodar-based lawyer was invited, who called the investigator and informed
him that he was joining the case and wanted to see the detention protocol and
the order to institute criminal proceedings.
This proved to be enough and on March 28,
Malika was released. The investigator reproached the sisters for “having acted
in the wrong way: contacted a lawyer, who is of no need at all to an innocent
person”.
Malika returned home; no apologies were offered to her for the
two-month’ illegal detention in custody. Her relatives decided against
challenging the illegal arrest.
In relation to the release of Malika Chabiyeva, Memorial HRC issued a
press release in which it drew attention to the disinformation that had been
dessimenated by representatives of security agencies following her arrest[33].
The press release said that on January 29, Komsomolskaya Pravda citing Nazir Yevloyev, head of the press
office of the MVD of Ingushetia, accused Malika Chabiyeva of having carried out
the April 23, 1997 terror act in the waiting room of the railway station
Armavir-2.
That same report by Komsomolskaya
Pravda gave the following information, citing the press office of the Chief
Directorate (GU) of the MVD (Interior Ministry) in the Southern Federal
District: “during the past year, 583 persons were identified in the territory
of the region who had committed crimes of a terrorist nature”.
A question is asked in the press release: How many of those 583 persons
have actually nothing to do with terrorism, just like Malika Chabiyeva?
Below is yet another example of illegal detentions at CAPs.
On March 11, 2007, at
UAZ
jeeps and an URAL truck, carrying Russian military troops, arrived at the small
house where the mother and son Khildikharoyev lived. They sealed off the house.
Zainap
asked the officers from security agencies about the goal of their visit. They
told her they came to conduct a check, since they had the information that two
persons they were looking for could be found on the premises of MTF-1.
Then
they entered Ali’s room and asked him to show his documents. After checking his
passport, they asked him about the goal of his visit there, since Ali was
registered at one of Grozny’s TAPs. He said he had come at his mother’s
invitation to meet a potential bride.
One
of the troops walked into another room, without noticing Zainap, Ali’s mother,
following him. He came to a bed and put something under the mattress. After
that the room was entered by a police officer from local police precinct,
Beshtoyev. He rebuked the serviceman for entering the room in the absence of
hosts. When the serviceman left, Zainap told Beshtoyev that he had put
something under the mattress. They came near the bed and found an F-1 grenade
there.
Beshtoyev
said he was not able to do anything, since those were “Russians and they were
not under his command”.
Then,
an unwarranted search was conducted, during which a neighbor, who was invited
as an attesting witness, was shown the grenade
that had been ‘discovered’. Ali Khildikharoyev was arrested and taken to the
GOVD of the town of Karabulak. Apparently thanks to the fact that the local
police precinct officer knew where the
grenade had come from, Ali’s detention did not result in any serious
consequences: three days later he was released.
Special operations
Starting from January 2007, the level of violence in Ingushetia was
higher than in Chechnya, where the number of abductions and the number of
special operations dramatically dropped this year.
On January
In response to this terror act, during February and March officers from
security agencies from Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia carried out 9
special operations in the territory of Ingushetia. Nine persons were killed as
a result of those operations. The operations were carried out with great
brutality and were in effect extrajudicial killings. To illustrate, we will give the details of four of the
operation, three of which were carried out in a sequence during the first week
of February. They all ended in the death of the people whose arrest was sought.
On February 3, 2007, from
5 p.m. to 10 p.m., a special operation to arrest Timur Abdul-Salmanovich Khaniyev (born 1981) was conducted in the
town of Malgobek. A high-rise apartment building was sealed off. Its dwellers
were not evacuated when the fire was opened; they started to rush out of the
building themselves. As a result of massive gunfire from automatic weapons,
grenade launchers and APCs, the building caught fire. It was only by the merest
chance that the building did not burn down. The dead bodies of the two persons
who got killed were completely charred. It was reported later that one of the
killed persons was Timur Khaniyev. The efforts to establish the identity of the
second person did not give any results. According to some reports, it could be
a woman. Timur Khaniyev had had a positive reputation among his neighbors and
people had been gathering in his apartment to pray and study the Koran in a
group (for more details see Appendix
5).
On February 7, 2007, two residents of
Ingushetia, Adam (Ibragim) Izmailovich
Gardanov (born 1985) and Magomed
Bashirovich Chakhkiyev (born
1973), were killed by officers from secret services during a special operation
in the city of Nazran, at Chechenskaya Street.
At
3.30 p.m., a VAZ 99 car, in which Gardanov and Chakhkiyev were traveling,
pulled up in front of the GIBDD (State Traffic Safety Inspectorate) building.
Suddenly, the car was blocked on two sides by a white Gazel van and a VAZ-2109
car. Over 10 armed people in camouflage uniforms and civvies jumped out of the
cars. They ran up to the car and opened fire without warning. Another two or
three troops ran up and also opened fire. The occupants of the car were killed. They had offered no armed
resistance. Final shots were fired at the killed persons.
Many
of those who found themselves witnesses to the special operation, including
officers from law-enforcement agencies of Ingushetia, claim that the people in
the car could have been captured alive. Ibragim Gardanov (Adam in the passport) was reputed to have been treating
patients by alternative methods – using Muslim prayers. Officers from security
agencies had taken notice of Adam’s activites during a passport check, when
they saw that many people came to see him at his office. The second killed man,
Magomed Chakhkiyev, had had his wife treated by Gardanov. On February 7,
Chakhkiyev was driving Gardanov to his home for a regular medical treatment
session.
On February 4, 2007, at
around
At
When
Merzhoyev was out in an open field and broke into a walk, one of the officers
from security agencies got down on one knee and took an aimed shot in his
direction. Zelimkhan
fell to the ground. A few minutes later an explosion was heard near him. By all appearances,
he blew himself up with a grenade he had
hidden on him.
The
house was searched but no illegal items were found in the search. The body of
the killed man was given back to relatives after the investigative actions were
carried out. It means that he had been absent from the wanted list and had not
been involved in any crimes.
Zelimkhan
Merzhoyev worked as a programmer at the Education Department of the Malgobek
District. On February 1, officers from the Malgobek ROVD took Zelimkhan from
his office to the police District Department’s building, where he was
interrogated, fingerprinted and released. The interrogation was carried out pro forma and no specific charges were presented
against Merzhoyev. The fact that the young person committed what was in
effect a suicide can be explained only by the horror instilled in the citizens
by the possibility of been prosecuted, tortured and inevitably sentenced to
long imprisonment terms for the crimes they have never committed.
On March 15, 2007, Khusein Uvaisovich Mutaliyev (born
1980) was fatally wounded during a special operation in that same town of
Malgobek.
At
around
They
burst into the house and started a search. The troops did not introduce
themselves or show any documents; they were rude and were insulting members of
the Mutaliyev family. After they searched the house and found nothing, they
grabbed Khusein Mutaliyev and took him into the yard.
They
started beating Mutaliyev; he broke free and tried to escape. Fire to kill was
opened on him from automatic weapons. Khusein fell to the ground but was still
alive. The wounded man was rudely forced into a car, after which all the vehicles
drove off in the direction of North Ossetia.
On
that same day, Khusein Mutaliyev’s brother, Khasan, turned with a written
statement to a representative office of Memorial HRC with a request to provide
assistance in establishing the whereabouts of his abducted brother.
In
the afternoon, the following report was posted on the Web-site of INTERFAX news
agency: “during a special operation, officers from law-enforcement agencies of
Ingushetia and North Ossetia eliminated an active member of an IAG, Khusein Mutaliyev,
in Malgobek, Ingushetia, a source in the law-enforcement agencies of Ingushetia
told the Interfax-Yug news agency Thursday. On Thursday afternoon, in Malgobek,
when the arrest was carried out of Khusein Mutaliyev (born 1980), who was on
the federal wanted list for abductions of people (Article 126 of the Criminal
Code of the Russian Federation), he offered armed resistance and tried to
explode a grenade, at which moment he
sustained a gunshot wound. The explosion was avoided”. According to the source,
the wounded militant was taken to a local hospital, where he died of the wounds
he had sustained.
The agency’s interlocutor also reported
that Khusein Mutaliyev was an ideological leader of illegal armed groups
promoting Wahhabism and also an active member of the armed gang led by field
commander Khasmagomed Bogatyrev. He was also suspected of involvement in the
incursion into Ingushetia in June
On the following day, March 16, the Mutaliyev
family was officially informed about Khusein’s death and his body was released
to it from the morgue of the city of Vladikavkaz. The wounded
Khusein Mutaliyev had not been taken to a hospital in Ingushetia, as claimed in
the report by Interfax.
At
the Malgobek ROVD relatives were informed that Khusein Mutaliyev was absent
from the wanted list and there was no information about his links with
militants.
Earlier,
on September 21, 2006, Khusein Mutaliyev was already detained by officers from
law-enforcement agencies of Ingushetia. For three days he was kept at the
Malgobek GOVD, where he was beaten to make him incriminate himself. From
Malgobek he was transferred to the Nazran ROVD and kept there for another seven
days, after which he was released.
On
September 21, several other residents of Malgobek were arrested together with
Mutaliyev; they were also released later. One of them, Islam Oligov (born
1984), on November 27, 2006, was killed in the yard of his house by officers
from federal security agencies.
On
February 5, 2007, Khusein Mutaliyev turned to Memorial HRC with a statement, in
which he gave the details of his illegal detention and the beatings he had been
subjected. He also described the more recent incidents of harassment by the
police. After the attempt on the life of the Mufti of Ingushetia, police
officers came to his home and called him in for interrogation in relation to
his alibi.
Khusein
Mutaliyev together with his friends intended to write an open letter stating
that they were ready to answer any questions from the authorities; however, provided
that their constitutional rights were observed in the relevant procedures. They
were prevented from doing that.
Usually, on the following day after a special operation, before any
investigative actions are carried out, a report appears in the media about yet
another active member of an IAG been eliminated. By feeding false information
to the media officers from law-enforcement agencies in this way legitimize the
extrajudicial killings of innocent people who were “designated” as criminals.
Law-enforcement agencies indirectly admit that such people are innocent by
releasing the bodies of the killed persons to relatives for burial.
Article 14.1 of the Federal Law (FZ) “On Burial and Funeral Services”
prohibits the release to relatives for burial and making public the sites of
their burial in relation to the bodies of persons “whose criminal prosecution
for involvement in terrorist activities was terminated due to their death as a
result of actions preventing…these terrorist activities”.
In the established practice, this provision is interpreted broadly:
bodies are not released to relatives of all those who have been criminally
prosecuted for “involvement in terrorist activities”.
The Malgobek Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal case under Article
286 (abuse of authority) into the death of Khusein Mutaliyev. The case was
later passed on to the Prosecutor’s Office in the Southern Federal District.
In June 2007, the murder of Ruslan
Aushev during a targeted special operation caused a great stir in the Republic.
On June 17, 2007, at around
The troops sealed off houses No.28 and No.30 at Ausheva Street. First, a
search was carried out in house No.30, owned by Isropil Aushev; the garret and
household outbuildings were throroghly searched. In a similar manner a search
was conducted of the neighboring house No.28, belonging to Khavazh Aushev. They
were looking for Ruslan Aushev; however, he was not to be found anywhere.
Suddenly one of the troops in the cordon fired a grenade from a from a
grenade launcher at the garret of house No.30. A brisk fire ensued and for 20
minutes the garret was fired on from all sides. A dead body was found in the
garret. It was Ruslan Aushev. He had tried to hide in the garret at his
neighbors’. He had his hands torn off and there were multiple fragment wounds and lacerated wounds on the body.
The special operation was conducted with an extreme brutality and the
use of unlawful violence and torture. Isropil, Magomed, Khusen and Khasan
Aushev were badly kicked and hit with pipe pieces, after their hands were tied
by wires.
The houses were looted; money and documents were stolen; and windows
were smashed. An APC smashed in the gate of house No.30; the house building was
damaged and Khasan Aushev’s car was crashed.
Ruslan’s half-cousin, Magomed Aushev, was taken to Vladikavkaz, tortured
with electric shocks and beaten; his execution by firing squad was simulated.
They tried to force him into confessing to hiding his brother and to the crimes
he did not commit. He could not bear the torture any longer and signed some
papers, giving his consent to cooperate with the FSB, after which he was
released. After his release, Magomed Aushev wrote a statement he sent to
law-enforcement agencies and to Memorial HRC, in which he detailed the
abduction, the tortures and other humiliations, as well as the attempt to
recruit him as an FSB agent, giving the FSB officer’s mobile phone number.
On
June 25, at
Three months later, Magomed Aushev was abducted for the second time. It
happened on September 18, when he together with his half-cousin, who was also
named Magomed Aushev, was taking a taxi ride from Grozny to his home. On the
outskirts of the city, in the area of the settlement of Chernorechie, three
vehicles blocked their way. People in camouflage uniforms jumped out of the
vehicles. They hit the taxi driver, beat up the Aushevs and forced them into
their vehicle. As it was found out later in the day by their relatives, at
around 4 p.m., the vehicles of the abductors crossed the administrative border
between Chechnya and Ingushetia through Kavkaz-1 checkpoint.
The MVD of Chechnya claimed that its officers were not involved in the
abduction: no special operations had been conducted in the area of the
settlement of Chernorechie at that time.
On that same day, fellow-villagers of the Aushevs, residents of the
village of Surkhakhi, gathered together and decided to hold a protest rally in
the city of Nazran on September 19. The rally was started at 3 p.m.,
approximately 400 persons attended[34].
The protesters blocked the Chechenskaya Street near the office of the Danish Council and
blocked a railway crossing with blocks of concrete, blocking the traffic of
vehicles and trains. They held posters reading “Give our Sons Back to Us” and
“Stop the Abductions and the Killings”.
The protesters were twice approached by the Interior Minister Musa
Medov, who tried without success to persuade them to disband. The republican
prosecutor Yury Turygin and Deputies (members) of the RI Parliament also
arrived to meet the protesters. The people at the rally were very determined;
they said they would stand to the end – until they were informed about the fate
of the abducted men. They brought along flasks with water and prayer rugs,
intending to spend the night there.
The people who gathered at the rally presented their demands on local
television: return the Aushevs; investigate other abductions and murders of
residents of Ingushetia; and find and punish the real perpetrators.
Attempts were taken to disperse the gathering using OMON troops. The
protesters showered them with stones and forced the police officers back to
their vehicles. When midnight came, there were still 250 people at the site of
the rally.
At around
The abducted brothers were discovered at the Shatoi District ROVD. In
the morning of September 20, the Aushevs returned home.
Bellow is what the father of one of the abducted men, Makshar Aushev,
told a correspondent of Novaya Gazeta[35]: “They have gone through hell and Magomed has gone through it twice.
Every step was taken to retaliate for Magomed’s statement. It was a pure
retaliation: to wipe out the men and cover all traces. All their belongings –
passports and clothes – were immediately burned. They were beaten and tortured
with electric shocks; however, no demands were presented, no interrogations
were carried out and no attempts were made to have testimonies beaten out of
them – they were just tortured. For 48 hours, they were deprived of food and water.” To
all appearances, they were not going to release them alive. According to
Makshar Aushev, on the night of the 20th, the abductors suddenly
received the orders to release the Aushevs: “an officer from Moscow called
them”. They were put into a car and for a long time driven to some place. It
turned out they were taken to the village of Shatoi, where they were dropped
off near the district police precinct.
Later, Makshirip Aushev conveyed to Novaya
Gazeta[36] the information about the progress of the investigation he learned from
a source at the Prosecutor’s Office of the Zavodskoy District of the city of
Grozny:
“People who were involved in the abduction of the boys in Chechnya are
known. It has been established that those were officers of the GRU for Chechnya
and of the RF UFSB for Ingushetia. Their surnames, names and patronymics are
known. Officers from the prosecutor’s office say that up to 15 persons were
involved in the abduction. They have been suspended from duties and arrest
warrants have been issued for them. However, as I was told the other day at the
prosecutor’s office of Chechnya, during searches in the houses of these people
they were not found there. Their whereabouts are not known thus far. One of
these days the prosecutor’s office plans to carry out an investigative
experiment at the site where the boys were held – in the building of the
Urus-Martan UFSB.”
Makshirip Aushev said that to his knowledge the group of the abductors
was led by Abdul Mutsayev, officer from the UFSB of Russia fro Chechnya;
however, his whereabouts were unknown.
However, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Zavodskoy District of the
city of Grozny denied the reports the abductors had been identified. It said
that preliminary investigations were underway.
The determination of residents of Ingushetia, who had been driven to
extreme measures by the situation where officers from security agencies who
commit crimes go unpunished, played a major role in the release of the Aushevs.
Human rights activists circulated the information in the media and sent urgent
queries to the Prosecutor General’s Office and to Prosecutors of Ingushetia and
Chechnya.
The Aushev brothers were saved thanks to the joint efforts; however the
Aushevs are afraid of new harassment. They wrote statements requesting
protection and sent them to international organizations, the RF President, the
FSB Director, the Prosecutor General, the Human Rights Ombudsman, and Russian
human rights defenders.
In the statement they wrote: “It would seem that our sufferings are
over, although we have detailed just a fraction of the ordeal we endured at
that terrible hell. However, we are haunted by the vow made by one of our
torturers, who said: “I swear on the Koran: you will not live long if you leak
a word about what has happened to you”.”
All the authorities have to do to fulfill their duties is to see the
investigation through the investigation through and punish the guilty persons.
This would ensure that the lives would be saved of the Aushev brothers and
other people who are at risk of falling into the hands of those torturers.
The last special operation we would like to describe was an outrageous extrajudicial killing of innocent people. In that operation,
the ‘incriminating’ evidence was shamelessly fabricated right before the eyes
of a mother whose children has just been killed.
On September 27, 2007, after
On that same day, the RI MVD’s press office released the information
that during a special operation in the village of Sagopshi: “…two militants offered armed resistance and
were eliminated. One of the killed persons, Sait-Magomed Galayev (born 1983;
call sign ‘Abdul-Malik’), had been the so-called “emir” of the militants in the
Malgobek District of Ingushetia.”
On September 28, Memorial HRC workers in the village of Sagopshi met
relatives of the killed men. The mother of the killed men, Fasimat Galayeva,
gave her account of what had happened. Since the family observes the Muslim
fast of Ramadan, they woke up and had breakfast before the sun rose and then
went back to their rooms. Said-Magomed slept in his room together with his wife
Madina; another two brothers, Ruslan and Tagir, slept in a room that the farthest from the entrance; while the
mother and a younger son, Said-Akhmed, aged 11, slept in a room near the
entrance door.
At around
Fasimat, who was woken up by the sound of shots being fired, saw how
Ruslan stumbled into her room and fell near the bed. Her daughter-in-law, who
was held by the troops, was screaming in another room. The females,
Said-Akhmed and Tagir were taken to the street. The
troops threw three grenades into each
of the two rooms and only after that they forced Tagir to pull out his killed
brothers into the street. The women and the child were seated near the dead
bodies.
According to Madina, they were approached by a “Russian serviceman,” who
asked her for a black plastic bag. Madina answered that he had no such bag. He
left the yard and soon afterwards returned with an empty plastic bag of blue
color. He then sat near a shed and started to unload cartridges from the clip
of his automatic rifle into the bag. Later, this bag with cartridges was cited
in the search protocol as the object discovered in Galayev’s house.
The search protocol also stated that two automatic rifles and other
weapons had been discovered in the house. According to the Galayevs, they had
no weapons in their house. They do not know when and under what circumstances
the weapons were found, since the search was carried out in their absence.
Tagir, Fasimat Galayeva and her daughter-in-law Madina were taken to the
Malgobek ROVD. Only Said-Akhmed was left in the yard. For several hours, he sat
near near the dead bodies of his brothers, until they were taken away by the
troops. The search in the house continued for several hours and procedural
rules were not observed.
The detained persons were interrogated individually. The interrogation
was conducted by an investigator with the prosecutor’s office, Adam Sultanovich
Tsechoyev. At the interrogation, Fasimat shouted at him: “Where is the
government? Why did they kill my children when they had no guilt at all?” The
investigator replied smiling: “What government? They offered armed resistance”.
Tagir was questioned about how the weapons appeared in the houseand
where his brothers and he were on the night of September 7-8, at the time of
the attack on military unit 3733, located on the outskirts of Malgobek.
In the meantime, up to 100 relatives and neighbors of the Galayevs
gathered outside the building of the Malgobek ROVD. They demanded immediate
realease of the arrested persons and did not disband until their demands were
met. At 7.00 p.m., Fasimat was released from the ROVD; at 10.00 p.m. they
released Tagir and another 30 minutes later – Madina.
On September 28, the bodies of the brothers were released to the
Galayevs; they were buried on that same day. The Galayevs intend to turn to
law-enforcement agencies with a statement about the unlawful actions of
officers from security agencies; they have invited a lawyer.
According to the Galayevs’ fellow-villagers, the killed brothers had
never been involved in any illegal activities; they had not been secretive and
professed traditional Islam; they had worked part-time as construction workers
at private construction sites.
July-October
2007: Rapid deterioration of the situation
In June and July, the Republic was shaken by a series of high-profile
murders: deputy head of the administration of the Sunzha District, a prominent
religious leader, and the commander of the republican OMON were killed. A series of killings of Russian families was started.
On July 21, Adviser to the President of the Republic Vakha Vedzizhev was
fatally wounded in a shooting attack in the town of Karabulak. He died on the
way to hospital.
On July
On July 27, at 10 p.m., unknown people fired from automatic weapons and grenade launchers on the building of the
Administration of the President of Ingushetia and on the building of the FSB
Directorate in the town of Magas. As a result of the attack, one serviceman was
killed and two persons were wounded.
The village of Ali-Yurt, located near the town of Magas, was declared a
zone of counterterrorism operation. The
operation turned into a brutal punitive campaign against civilians.
On July 28, at
Following this punitive operation, 27 civilians, including women,
children under 15 and elderly people sought medical assistance. Tanzila
Esmurziyeva, who was seven-months pregnant, was hospitalized in a grave
condition. Appendix 6 cites eye-witness accounts of victims of the punitive
operation.
At
At
around
At around 8 p.m., three detained persons, Ruslan Ganizhev, Akhmed
Ganizhev and Khavash Gagiyev, were thrown out, with plastic bags on their
heads, onto the road between the village of Surkhakhi and the village of Yandyrka.
The detained persons said that at the UFSB they were individually interrogated
in the building’s basement. During the interrogation, the officers beat them on
the legs, in the kidney area and on the
head; they were asking about militants and trying to persuade them to
cooperate.
On that same day, all three were hospitalized. Doctors diagnosed Ruslan
Ganizhev with brain concussion, fractured ribs, prolapse of the kidney,
multiple bruises and abrasions. The other four persons who had been detained were
also released later.
Most of the injured were taken to the central clinical hospital of the
city of Nazran; two persons were hospitalized at hospitals in the city of
Moscow. On discharge from the hospital, many patients were not issued medical
documents. In the medical reports doctors made a record that the patient in
question left the health care center without permission and did not request a
certificate to be issued.
Some of the patients were issued medical documents; however on the
evening of the following day, doctors visited them at their homes and implored
them to hand back the certificates, explaining that they were threatened with
dismissals and harassment by the FSB.
On August 1, at around 11 p.m., one of the injured persons, whose son
was in a grave condition treated at the the Central Distcrict Hospital of the
city of Nazran, was visited by three unknown men in plain clothes. They
threatened him with punishment should he continue complaining against the
actions of the military.
On August 1, 30 injured residents of the village of Ali-Yurt approached
the prosecutor’s office and human rights organizations with statements, in
which they demanded to bring to justice the servicemen guilty of beatings. The
republican prosecutor’s office was forced to open a criminal case on the
beatings. Currently, this criminal case has been passed on to the military
prosecutor’s office.
Shortly after the punitive operation was carried in the village of
Ali-Yurt, additional troops were deployed in Ingushetia. The total strength of
the Interior Ministry Forces contingent was brought to 2,500 troops. The
deployment of additional troops did not solve the problem – attacks on officers
of security agencies continued.
On August 30, 2007, at around 4 p.m., Islam
Yusupovich Belokiyev (born 1988), a resident of the village of Dolakovo,
was killed at the automotive parts market in the city of Nazran.
A number of news agencies immediately reported citing official sources
that he was a militant and was killed during a special operation. According to
the law-enforcement agencies, Islam Belokiyev was a member of the illegal armed
group led by Adam Nalgiyev, who was killed during a special operation in June
2006. Nalgiyev had been involved in the acts of sabotage and terror and the attacks
on FSB officers in Ingushetia and in July this year pasted leaflets in Nazran
with threats against officers of the MVD of Ingushetia.
According to the eye-witnesses interviewed by Memorial HRC workers at
the scene, during the past two years, the young man together with his parents
worked in the market, selling automotive oils. For that purpose the family
rented a metal container at the market place. Islam usually went home after 3
p.m.
On that day, August 30, he closed the container and walked towards the
exit from the market place. Occupants of a VAZ-21010 car of metallic color,
parked under a willow on the outer side of the market fence, called out to him.
He turned in their direction, after which shots were fired. There were lots of
people around, who saw how Islam Belokiyev stood still for some time and then
slowly collapsed to the ground.
People rushed to the scene; however the people who fired at him – a man
of Slavic appearance, dressed in sports jacket and jeans, was standing out
among them – encircled Islam, who was still alive, and did not allow anyone to
approach him. Soon after that, a Gazel van arrived at the scene.
Officers from a federal special unit, who ran out of it, formed a second
cordon cirle. Unlike the first cordon, they were appropriately equipped:
armored jacket, masks and Spetsnaz
(Special Forces) SPHERA helmets. Some time later, servicemen on an APC arrived
at the market.
The young man was still alive for at least forty minutes. The witnesses
noticed that he moved his head from time to time. However, officers from
Russian security agencies, numbering approximately 70 to 80 persons, did not
provide medical assistance to him. They did not allow local police officers on
the scene, either.
The numerous witnesses of the incident claim that officers of the
special unit planted a pistol and a grenade
fuse on the wounded man. After putting the pistol into Islam Belokiyev’s
hand, they fired several shots from it in the air.
After searching the wounded man, the troops took the keys from the
container and went to open it. They demanded that people stand back, since as
they said the container could contain explosives.
The owner of the container rented by the Belokiyevs said that there
could be no explosives there. He took the keys and opened it himself. Together
with a local police officer and the military he himself came inside. Having
ascertained that there was nothing in the container, the troops left.
Some time later, officers from the Ingush prosecutor’s office and
doctors were allowed on the scene. However, Islam Belokiyev was already dead. His dead body was taken to
the municipal morgue and subsequently released to relatives.
On September 2, 2007, at about 6 p.m., a local resident, Apti
Dolakov (born 1986), was killed in the town of Karabulak.
News agencies reported citing official sources that a bandit had been
eleiminated during a special operation. Musa Medov, Interior Minister of the
Republic of Ingushetia, said that during a special operation to detain the
persons involved in recent crimes one of them, Apti Dolakov, was eliminated and
another one was detained. The Minister alleged that Apti Dolakov had had a grenade on him and had offered armed
resistance and claimed that Iliz Dolgiyev, who was called Dolakov’s accomplice,
was giving evidence[37].
Memorial HRC conducted its own investigation and interviewed the
numerous witnesses of this incident.
According to eye-witnesses, Apti Dolakov together with his friends was
leaving an Internet café located near a high school at Generala Oskanova
Street, when two Gazel minbuses pulled up
near them. One minibus was white and another was dark-blue; they had
tinted windows and no license plates.
Armed people wearing masks (up to 30 men) ran out of them. One or two of them
were dressed in plain clothes.
The young men saw the weapons directed at them and ran through the yards
of the nearest high-rise apartment buildings in the direction of Dzhabagiyeva
Street. Shots were fired. Witnesses
claim that the unknown men fired aimed shots from automatic weapons at the
escaping boys from a kneeling position.
The day was Sunday and it was only by good fortune that no one of the
many women and children who were in the yards was injured.
Apti Dolakov ran through the yards to Dzhabagiyeva Street, crossed it
and ran into the yard of kindergarten “Ryabinka”, where forced migrants from
the Prigorodny District of the RNO-A live. Here his pursuers caught up with
him.
According to people living on the premises of the kindergarten, there
were two of them: one was wearing a camouflage uniform and a mask; the other
had plain clothes on and his face was unmasked. One of them shouted to a woman
who was watching them, “Close the window”. Immediately after that the sound of
shots was heard.
Apti Dolakov fell to the ground face down. The man in civvies ran up to
him, pulled his T-shirt over his face and fired several shots from his pistol,
including a final shot to the head. He then put some object into Apti Dolakov’s
hand. According to local police officers, who later carried out the
investigative actions, this ‘object’ proved to be a grenade without a safety pin.
GOVD officers and troops from the republican OMON, which is
headquartered on the outskirts of the town of Karabulak, heard the sound of
shots being fired and arrived at the kindergarten. They demanded that the
unknown men introduce themselves and tried to approach Apti Dolakov’s body.
Threats were made in response. Aiming the weapons at the Ingush police officers
and OMON troops, the unknown men called: “Keep back, you faggots, or we will
shoot!”
The stand-off did not last long: the blocked unknown men radioed for
reinforcement and some man in plain clothes ordered someone over the radio
(apparently to someone in the Gazel van) to hide a certain bag. The exact
wording of the phrase was: “Hide the bag or we would have problems when local
field investigators arrive now.” An officer from local security agencies, who
heard it all, believes the man referred to a bag with weapons that was intented
to be planted on the killed person.
A crowd of angry citizens gathered outside the kindergarten, who
demanded tro hand over the murderers to them for punishment. It was only thanks
to the determined actions of the Ingush police officers that the crowd was kept
back with great difficulty.
Despite the fact that officers from federal security agencies arrived at
the murder scene by URAL trucks and UAZ jeeps, and later, by APCs, local police
officers disarmed and took to the GOVD building the persons who directly
responsible for the death of Apti Dolakov.
According to officers from the Karabulak GOVD, the detained persons
refused to introduce themselves or explain the motives of their actions.
However, during a bodily search, identity cards of FSB officers were found in
their underwear. One of the detained persons (he was also dressed in civvies
and was an ethnic Chechen) had the documents on him which showed that he was
supposedly “Senior Lieutenant Mador Sergeyevich Morzanashvili”.
Cards with Ingush surnames were found on four Russian participants in
the murder. The identity card of an officer of secret services found on an
ethnic Ingush revealed an Azerbaijanian surname. Documents of other twelve
persons who were detained showed Slavic surnames; however, those were also
probably assumed names.
Two persons who were in the Gazel van managed to escape. Inside the van
that they abandoned the Ingush police officers found Ilez Dolgiyev, who was handcuffed and had a plastic bag on his
head. According to him, when he saw armed people firing after an escaping young
man, he tried to hide but was captured.
Soon afterwards, high-ranking officers from the UFSB for Ingushetia
arrived at the OVD of the town of Karabulak. They demanded that the detained
persons be released and any investigations into their actions discontinued. But
most importantly, they ordered to give back the empty cartridge cases and the
pistol with which Apti Dolakov was shot dead.
According to the Ingush police officers, it was this pistol and the
person who used it that worried a high-ranking FSB officer most of all,
although a whole stockpile of other weapons was seized from the killers as
well: Stechkin pistols, automatic rifles and machine guns. As a result, no
examination of this pistol could be carried out to check whether it had been
used in other high-profile crimes.
Despite protests from police officers and rank-and-file police of
Karabulak, by the night of that same day, the murderers had been released at
the orders from the Interior Minister of Ingushetia. Ilez Dolgiyev was detained
and investigation is underway.
On October 9, 2007, at around 10 p.m., a local resident, Albert Magomedovich Gorbakov (born 1985), was killed by police
officers in the town of Malgobek not far from his own house.
At around 9 p.m., he drove his VAZ-21009 car to look for his sheep. One
hour later, his mother heard shots being fired some 200-
According to the information of the RI Prosecutor’s Office, Gorbakov was
killed when he offered resistance to police officers who stopped his car to
check documents. The three persons who were in the car opened fire on police
officers and tried to escape. Albert Gorbakov was killed by the return fire; two
other men escaped from the scene.
According to the information obtained from other sources, Gorbakov and
other occupants of his car offered no armed resistance but were shot at after
they got out of the vehicle.
On October
Albert Gorbakov was a fifth-year student studying law at the Ingush
State University (IGU).
While FSB officers were carrying out extrajudicial killings of innocent people, passing them off as militants, the real bandits
intensified the armed terror. In September, during two days alone, on the 6th
and the 7th, two border guards were shot dead in Ingushetia and a
bomb attack was made on a police patrol, killing four field investigators.
A tragic event happened on November
However, the boy’s father, Ramzan Amriyev, and his neighbors give a
different story. In the morning of November 9, Spetsnaz troops sealed off their house and ordered everyone to
leave it. Ramzan came to the door to do so; however, the door was broken in and
fire was opened at the walls from automatic rifles. Ramzan’s younger son was
killed and his wife was wounded in the leg by the indiscriminate fire.
The head of the Chemulga Administration Aslan Amriyev was threaned by
execution by firing squad when attempts were made to try to persuade him to corroborate
the official story. Aslan Amriyev argued that it made no sense, since neighbors
had themselves witnessed the incident.
The Amriyevs were taken into the street barefoot; 22 persons were
standing there barefoot – only 8 of them were adults.
The Amriyevs’ house, according to neighbors, was rammed three times by
an APC. Noone was allowed on the crime scene until the prosecutor arrived. A
few hours after the incident, FSB officers alleged that an automatic rifle had
been discovered in the Amriyevs’ house.
Villagers are preparing for a rally in the city of Nazran, scheduled for
November 24, and demand a response from President Zyazikov.
The President made a statement on the incident only after three days had
passed, when the murder of the child was reported by the Russian and foreign
media. He said that he was taking the investigation of the incident under his
personal control and that financial assistance would be provided to Rakhim
Amriyev’s family.
Killings
of Russian-speaking citizens of Ingushetia
From
July to October
On
the night of July 16, 2007, school
teacher Lyudmila Vladimirovna Terekhina
(born 1952) and her two children, Vadim
(born 1988) and Marina (born 1983),
were killed in their own house in the stanitsa of Ordzhonikidzevskya.
Late
at night, on July 16, three or fours armed persons broke into Terekhina’s
house. According to Lyudmila Terekhina’s brother, Sergey Vladimirovich
Artyukhov, the criminals entered the room where he and her sister were
sleeping. They asked in Russian: “Where do you keep money?”
Without
waiting for a reply one of the unknown men fired a shot at Lyudmila Terekhina.
The sound of the shot was muffled – probably a pistol with a silencer was used.
Then the unknown persons shot dead Vadim Terekhin and Marina Terekhina, after
which they left the house and disappeared in an unknown direction. They did not
kill Sergey Artyukhov, who is disabled from childhood and has impaired sight.
Another
terror act was carried out during the funeral of the victims: eleven persons
were wounded in an explosion at a cemetery.
On August 30, 2007, members
of the family of a Russian language teacher of a local school, Vera Borisovna Draganchuk, were
nurdered in the town of Karabulak. Unknown criminals shot dead her husband, Anatoly, and her two sons, 24-year-old Mikhail and 20-year-old Denis.
The
killers broke into the house at around midnight. Apparently they climbed over
the fence. The criminals entered a room where family members were watching
television without being noticed and fired at them using a Makarov pistol with
a silencer. The dead bodies of Anatoly Draganchuk and Mikhail were found in the
house. Denis, who had been wounded, lay in the yard. He died in a vehicle on
his way to the hospital.
Upon
hearing the shots being fired, Vera Draganchuk got out of the window and hid
herself. Apparently she had tried to pull Mikhail, her elder son, into the
yard, too; however, did not have time for that and the criminals shot him dead.
At
the time of the incident, Vera Draganchuk’s mother-in-law and her brother,
Boris Tonkogubov, were in a makeshift hut in the yard. The killers did not harm
them.
Anatoly
Draganchuk worked as a driver at a laundry. Mikhail, who was a mentally
retarded disabled person, was helping him. Denis was a second year student of
economics at the Ingush State University. The killed man’s daughter, Tatiana, a
paramedic at a municipal hospital, was at the time of the criminal attack on
her family, was outside the Republic.
On September 7, 2007, at
Mudarova’s family was multi-ethnic: she herself was
married to a Chechen and both her daughters married ethnic Ingushes.
On
October 15, 2007, at around 2 p.m., Nikolay Kortikov, his
pregnant daughter-in-law Zoya Kortikova, and their neighbor Tatiana Nemova,
were murdered in the town of Karabulak. Nikolay’s wife Tatiana Kortikova
sustained wounds.
According to a witness, the Kortikovs, together with
their neighbor, went out into the street and were waiting for their son who was
to arrive by bus. At this moment, a VAZ car pulled up near them, from which
fire from automatic rifles was opened.
On November 4, 2007, at around 10 p.m., in the
village of Yandare, the Nazran District, unidentified armed persons in masks
entered the premises of a brick factory and shot dead four workers: a citizen
of Belarus, V.B. Ponamarev (born
1961); a resident of Kabardino-Balkaria, V.N.
Oskin (born 1947); and residents
of the Stavropol Krai (Teritory), S.A.
Butusov (born 1964) and A.D.
Troshchak (born 1957). Three workers died on the spot. A.D. Troshchak sustained a gunshot wound in the right arm.
On the following day, November 5,
2007, two ethnic Armenians who were permanent residents of Ingushetia were
killed. At around
In all the above incidents the identities of the attackers have not been
established.
These developments prompted a number of citizens to turn to the
President and the Government of Ingushetia with an appeal (See Appendix 13).
A
series of attacks on etnnic Russians in Ingushetia had taken place before – in
January–March 2006[38]. Explosive devices and jars with Molotov cocktail were thrown into the
yards of houses and members of one family were shot dead at night in their own
house.
According
to the President of Ingushetia Murat Zyazikov, who has announced the program
for the return of ethnic Russian residents to Ingushetia, the Government of the
Republic is to allocate 12 mln. rubles for this program during 2007. It is
planned that before 2010, conditions will have been created for the return to
the republic of over 200 Russian-speaking families. Construction works are
underway for the erection of a big orthodox Christian church.
However,
the authorities are not able to ensure safety of Russians families, as well as
of the rest of the Republic’s population.
Local
residents are very concerned about the developments; they make arrangements for
guarding the houses of their Russian neighbors, trying to protect them
themselves.
It
must be admitted, however, that the level of violence in Ingushetia both by
illegal groups and security agencies has now surpassed the level of violence in
Chechnya. In such situation, internally displaced persons from Chechnya no
longer have an alternative to returning home.
The reasons are widely discussused now as to why Ingushetia, which until
recently was one of the safest republics, has turned into a place where public
tensions are the highest, attacks are carried out relentlessly on public
officers, including the President, crimes are committed against the Russian
population, and brutal punitive operations are conducted.
There
is a widespread conviction among the local residents that the killings have
been organized by secret services to destabilize the situation in Ingushetia
and implant there the punitive mechanisms that have been tried and tested in
Chechnya. Some think that there is an active underground organization aiming to
take revenge against Russians for killings of Ingushes, destabilize the
situation in the Republic and derail the program for the return of ethnic
Russians..
However, we think that the process of destabilization can not be
explained unambiguously.
Stability in the Ingushetia led by Ruslan Aushev, for quite a long time
was based on his moral authority, approachability and ability to combine – in
addressing the problems that arose – traditional mechanisms and the power
vested in him and not challenged by anybody in the Republic.
Thank to it Ingushetia was able to accept hundreds of thousands of
refugees from Chechnya. Aushev personally made orders in early November 1999,
to let them into Ingushetia, overcoming the resistance shown by the federal
center, when he said an almost biblical phrase: “Let them in – they are my
people.” The population of Ingushetia almost doubled; however, all conflicts
between the local population and refugees were dampened before they emerged.
The current government in Ingushetia does not enjoy that popularity
among the population or act with that authority and consistency. In 2002, when
he became President of Ingushetia with support from Moscow, Murat Zyazikov
found himself in a dubious position. He had to implement all instructions from
the federal center and at the same time prove to his people that he was not
alien to the traditions and the notion of the Vainakh brotherhood [Translator'
s Note: Vainakh tribes are considered to be the ancestors of Chechen and Ingush
people. The word “Vainakh” means “our people”]. During the campaign to move out
the refugee camps and, later, to shut down compact setllements, the Ingush
authorities acted in a very conflicting manner: they tried to accurately
implement the instructions to remove IDPs, at the same time constantly giving assurances
that they would not allow a single person to be returned home against their
will.
Later, the authorities failed to contain the spread of arbitrary
practices of Russian secret services to Ingushetia; they failed to protect
their citizens against abductions, trumped-up criminal cases, and extraction of
confessions under torture.
We have already cited the examples of helplesseness of the authorities
in Ingushetia in our previous reports. For instance, on June 17, 2004, officers
from law-enforcement agencies of the RI failed to prevent the smuggling to the
CR of a resident of the town of Karabulak, Adam Medov, who was discovered
during a check at a roadblock in the trunk of a car, the occupants of which
presented identity cards of FSB officers. As a result, Adam Medov went missing.
The FSB said that the IDs that had been shown were
fake. The wife and children of Adam Medov and their close relatives had to seek
shelter in Germany after they a wave of harassment and threats was directed at
them[39].
Ingushetia does not have its own SIZO. Ingushes who are detained by
law-enforcement agencies are taken for investigation to the city of
Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, with which Ingushetia does not enjoy
the best of relations because of the Ossetian-Ingush conflict. Lawyers who are
ethnic Ingushes have difficulties working at the Vladikavkaz SIZO and it is
very hard to find an Ossetian lawyer; therefore persons under investigation are
in effect deprived of full defense.
Seting aside the economic
reasons and the escalating corruption, one can state that overall tensions and
discontent of the population were gradually growing in Ingushetia. This process
culminated in the raids on Nazran and Karabulak carried out by militants on the
night of June 21–22, 2004[40].
The insurgents looted
weapons depots and shot officers from law-enforcement agencies. The attempt to
lay the blame for the attacks on the militant grous active in Chechnya failed:
there were quite many residents of Ingushetia among the participants in the
raid.
In the aftermath of the
raid, arrests and mop-up operations were carried out, including at the places where IDPs reside. The authorities should be
given their due – there were few incidents of physical violence against IDPs.
However, the campaign to squeeze IDPs out of Ingushetia has intensied.
Fear was deeply implanted in the people’s minds after the 2004 incursion
and the reprisals that followed, by no means always targeting the real
perpetrators, and the habitual settling of scores between families that was
started.
This fear is intensified by the Ossetian-Ingush conflict that has not
been setlled completely. Despite the fact that the Russian authorities did a
lot in the past two years to return Ingush IDPs to the Prigorodny District of
North Ossetia and provide them with housing, tensions have not been relieved.
Six Ingushes were abducted in Ossetia and disappeared without a trace in 2007
alone [41].
One can assume that now isolated armed groups pursuing different goals
and directed by different forces have emerged in the territory of Ingushetia in
the context of general instability. The more brutal the so-called “combating of
terrorism” becomes, the greater is the resistance and the more brutal and
immoral forms it develops.
One can hardly imagine that
the federal authorities deliberately seek destablization, putting into
positions of power their protégés and trying through them to
closely control the processes that are taking place there. At the same time,
however, there is no doubt about the fact the policies pursued by the federal
center in the North Caucasus have failed.
V. Situation of people from Chechnya in Russia’s
regions
Nationalism
is on the rise in Russia. The Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) and
several similar organizations hold rallies and marches in Moscow and in other
cities and towns. In full view of the numerous police they publicly call to
beat the “non-Russians”, including Chechens. The authorities do not bring the
extremists to account and dismiss statements by non-governmental organizations
demanding to put a stop to campaigns by the nationalists. The level of violence
is growing day by day; murders because of ethnic hatred are becoming the
routine topics in the news. Judicial authorities cover up those few who nevertheless
come on trial, trying to remove the nationalistic motives of violence from the
elements of the offences.
Several
hundred Chechen IDPs, who fled the hostilities of the first and the second
wave, live in the territory of Russia. A great part of them reside in the
southern regions of Russia – in the Stavropol Krai (Territory), in the
Volgograd Region and the Rostov Region, as well as in the Moscow region. Their
situation has little changed from the previous years.
Chechens
still find themselves in “special attention zone” as far as their interactions
with law-enforcement agencies are concerned. The latter see them as potential
criminals. When registration is made, Chechens are fingerprinted and have their
full face and profile “mugshots” taken. They can be detained without any
grounds by the police for alleged administrative violations and can be punished
by arrest. Those detained are subjected to humiliation and threats by police
officers. Complaints against such treatment have been reported in the Moscow
Region, Kazan and other cities and towns of Russia. Rural communities often simply refuse to accept Chechens.
The
animosity shown by the local population towards Chechens increasingly often
leads to serious conflicts between them. Such ethnic conflicts have taken place
in the town of Kondopoga in Karelia, in Stavropol, and in Moscow. They were
widely covered in the media. The conlicts were fanned by the active involvement
of nationalist organizations.
The
fear and enmity towards Chechens, which exist in everyday life, are manifest in
their treatment by officials, too. All immigrants from Chechnya, including
ethnic Russians, are faced with prejudiced attitudes towards themselves. The
people who lost housing and property as a result of the war receive virtually
no social support and assistance to resettle in a new place. The compensation
paid by the state to residents of Chechnya who left it never to return, is so
small that it is impossible to buy housing and get a roof over one’s head with
it.
Situation of forced migrants
Forced migrant status
represents practically the only guarantee of state support to IDPs in
resettling, since it is impossible to buy housing with compensation. In
1991-2006, approximately 150,000 people from Chechnya were granted this status.
The overwhelming majority of them were ethnic Russians who fled the Republic
before and during the first military campaign. Chechens were granted this
status very rarely – more often than not in the situations where court rulings
were issued to this effect when support was provided by lawyers and human
rights defenders.
However, even those who have this status have almost no hope left to get
assistance from the state: in recent years, we have seen an active process of
forced migrants been struck off the registers without provision of housing to
them. Migration services look for every excuse to withdraw migrant status.
Missing the date for renewal of status, receipt of the compensation for lost
housing and property, and registration at the housing of relatives – all these
circumstances serve as a ground to withdraw status. Earlier, the issues related
to extension of forced migrant status could be settled in court; however, in
recent years, the courts have been refusing extension of status if compensation
was received, despite the fact that even upon its payment migrants still are
not resettled and do not have their own housing.
As seen from the Summary Table below, provided by the FMS of Russia,
during the past five years, the number of forced migrants on the books of the
Federal Migration Service has been rapidly dwindling – along with the funding
for and the number of families that received assistance in purschasing housing
in the reporting year.
|
|
Struck
off the registers |
Number of forced migrants at the year’s end |
Funding |
Resettled |
||
|
|
Families |
Persons |
Families |
Persons |
Mln. rubles |
Families |
|
2002 |
63,775 |
150,447 |
204,092 |
491,898 |
991.6 |
3,560 |
|
2003 |
59,962 |
142,539 |
145,161 |
352,071 |
775.6 |
2,355 |
|
2004 |
48,945 |
116,003 |
98,957 |
237,998 |
605.8 |
1,745 |
|
2005 |
31,248 |
70,513 |
67,863 |
168,253 |
495.3 |
1,272 |
|
2006 |
21,548 |
55,470 |
47,868 |
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