Filtration System
From February 2000, mass media started
reporting about the situation in the “filtration points” (FPs) created by the
federal forces in the
The key task of the “filtration system”
was to identify and isolate participants of armed formations resisting federal
forces and their supporters. However, it is obvious that the same system was
aimed to resolve broader issues – it was used for creation of the network of
informers recruited from among the local population and, along with other
actions by the federal forces, for terror, suppression and intimidation of all
the people disloyal to the regime in
The major characteristic of the
“filtration system” was its non-selectivity. Lack of systematized data on the
participants of armed formations resulted in mass detentions of innocent
people, while their confession of the crime could be the only accusatory
evidence against them. Obtainment of the confession was possible only through
intimidation, beatings and tortures.
The word-combination “filtration point”
(FP) appeared during the first Chechen war of 1994-1996 as the official name of
the places for holding the detained persons in the ChR territory, although
their legal status was not certain and creation – illegal.
In contrast to this, during the second Chechen
war (the so-called “CTO”) some of the “filtration system” facilities got
legitimate statuses of investigative isolators (SIZO) subordinated to the RF
Ministry of Justice and temporary detention isolators (IVS) subordinated to the
RF Ministry of Interior.
The Chernokozovo FP was created at the end of 1999 and, at the beginning, it
had the status of “temporary reception center for the persons detained on the
grounds of vagrancy and begging”.[1]
The status of “reception center” was convenient for the Ministry of Interior as
such facilities, unlike the SIZO, are fully subordinated to militia, while the
people delivered there without any charges can be held for much longer periods
than in the IVS. The people delivered to the Chernokozovo “reception center”
were anyone but vagabonds; those were all kinds of “suspicious persons”
including the persons detained during “zachistka” in their own homes. In the
winter of 2000, journalist Andrey Babitsky was delivered there and became a
witness of the atrocities taking place there.
FPs were created
during 2000-2002 at the outskirts of the towns and villages in the course of
numerous “zachistkas”, where the employees of the Ministry of Defense, Ministry
of Interior and internal security structures delivered the detained persons.
There, they “checked” tens and even hundreds of local residents as to their
belonging to the illegal armed formations. Based on the results of this check,
the detained persons had to be either released or transferred to other
penitentiary facilities. The group of soldiers performing the “zachistka”
usually set up a camp at the outskirts of the town or village, while the FP was
located nearby, in the open field or in the abandoned premises.[2] As
one of the basic characteristics of “zachistkas” in the period of 2000 – 2003
was mass nature and non-selectivity of detentions, the number of detained
people exceeded the capacity of the “regular” detention places and majority of
these people were soon released, as a rule. Nevertheless, practically all those
held in the FPs were exposed to beatings and tortures, while some of them
“disappeared” during numerous special operations. Tortures with electric
current using field phone wire were widely spread.
The legal status of such FPs within
effective Russian legislation is absolutely unclear. The current normative acts
regulating the activity of detention facilities, places where the persons are
held in custody or other forms of forcible restriction of citizens’ physical
freedom contain no such concept as “FP”.[3]
Besides temporary FPs, there also
existed regular, long-term facilities, one of them named by the military
“Titanic”, which was located between the villages of Alleroy and Tsentoroy,
wherefrom people used to “disappear” as well. Thus, the cousins of Alsultanovs
– Magomed-Emin Soipovich and Khan-Ali-Imaliyevich detained by the federal
forces in the
Some people from the temporary and
regular FPs were released, while those whom the military found necessary “to
continue working with” were either transferred to the official detention
facilities, i.e. IVSs created within the district Temporary Departments of the Ministry of Interior
(VOVD),[5]
and SIZO or to illegal prisons. However, as it was already mentioned before,
some of the people died in the FPs.
Besides, from the very beginning of
the holding of “CTO” in
Employees of the Prosecutor’s Office
and of the Chechen Civil Administration, as well as of the Office of the
Special Representative of the President of the RF for ensuring human and civil
rights and freedoms in the
The situation in such "filtration
facilities" could change both for the better and for the worse.
In the late winter of 2000, after the
publicizing of evidence related to tortures and beatings of the people kept in
Chernokozovo “reception center” and protests by the international public, the
Russian authorities quickly changed the status of this FP turning it into SIZO.
After that, life conditions there improved notably although the use of tortures
continued. During the period of 2000 – 2002, the temporary isolator functioning
within the Ministry of Interior Departments in Urus-Martan and Oktabrsky
district of the city of
Later, when Russian and foreign public
focused its attention on the events taking place in the temporary isolators,
violence, cruelty, tortures and arbitrary executions were transferred to the
informal detention places (for example, in Khankala) or to the quasi-legal
places of close custody.[6]
The exact number of the people having
passed through the filtration system is impossible to be identified – those are
thousands of citizens.
When asked about the number of
detentions and arrests, the official structures usually give as statistics to
the press and public the number of persons having gone through the SIZO in
Chernokozovo and now in Groznyy – these are about ten thousand.
However, the real number of the persons
detained and arrested in
However, during each
“zachistka” the majority of the people having been delivered to the temporary
FPs were not registered. Only some of those who, for some reason, interested
the “competent bodies” during the “filtration” became officially registered as
detained persons.
Here should be also added the people
held in the territory of military units’ deployment.
Thus, by the most modest estimations, the overall number of those
having passed through the “filtration system” reaches 200 thousand. For
[1]
Order of the RF Minister of Interior V. Rushaylo No 1077 from 22.12. 1999
[2]
The “filtration point” in the town of
[3]
The word combination of “filtration point” that the representatives of the
federal forces in
[4]
Response by the Deputy Prosecutor of the Argun Inter-District Prosecutor’s
Office R. Tishin No 117 from February 12. 2002, to the inquiry by the
[5]
“VOVD” is a structure within the RF Ministry of Interior performing, actually
the functions of District Departments of the Ministry of Interior (ROVD) in the
ChR territory. The VOVD officers are militiamen sent to work in
[6]
First of all, within the Bureau No 2 for Operative Investigation in the city of