Migration Rights
Network
Edited by
S. A. Gannushkina
On the situation of residents of Chechnya in the
Russian Federation
October 2007 – April 2009
Moscow
2009
Based on
materials
of the Migration
Rights Network and Hot Spots Program,
both
part of
as well as on materials of Civic Assistance
Committee
and Internet publications
Svetlana Gannushkina
– Head of the Migration Rights Network,
Chairwoman of the Civic Assistance Committee
Nadezhda Scherbakova – compiler of the report
The Migration Rights Network of Memorial Human Rights Center comprises
56 offices of free legal aid to forced migrants, with 5 of the offices located
in Chechnya and Ingushetia (www.refugee.memo.ru)
Lawyers of the Migration Rights Network in Moscow work using the base of
the Civic Assistance Committee, a charity helping refugees (www.refugee.ru).
Distributed free of charge
II. CHECHENS IN THE PENITENTIARY AND JUDICIAL SYSTEMS
III. ON THE IMAGE OF THE ENEMY IN MASS CONSCIOUSNESS
IV. PROVISION OF HOUSING TO INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS IN THE REPUBLIC OF INGUSHETIA
V. THE SITUATION OF CHECHENS IN OTHER REGIONS OF RUSSIA
Appendix 1. Abduction of a former prisoner of Ramzan Kadyrov’s illegal
prison
Appendix 2. North Caucasus: disturbing tendencies
Appendix 3. The practice of arsons of suspected terrorists’ houses
Appendix 4. Article “The Right to
Be a Human” by Svetlana Gannushkina
Appendix 5. Reply of the Prosecutor’s Office of Mordovia to the inquiry
about Kodzoyev
Appendix 6. Reply of the Federal Penitentiary Service to the inquiry
about Zubayrayev
Appendix 9. Inquiry to the RF Federal Security Service
The previous sixth report on the
situation of Chechens in Russia covered events through October 2007[1].
There has long been plenty of material for preparing the next yearly report.
However, when compiling it we face the problem of safety both for those whose
destinies we describe and of those officers of our organization who work in
Chechnya.
Of course, the problem existed
earlier as well, but the level of danger became such that we no longer risk
publishing and presenting a report, which would openly tell about the situation
in Chechnya. In the end of 2007 such a presentation already resulted in a storm
of protests from the leadership of the republic.
Besides, the applicants themselves dare to approach us or the law enforcement bodies more and more rarely, more and more of them refuse to tell about the violent acts committed against them, fearing persecution by the authorities. If they do come and tell about their grieves, they almost always prohibit us from making their stories public. Therefore, despite a decrease in abductions and extrajudicial executions, we cannot reliably determine how high the percentage of the information that we lose is. We still included one tragic case of applying to law enforcement bodies into the report (Appendix 1).
Despite the drastic decrease in
registered abductions of people by the law enforcement and in cases of
tortures, the abductions, tortures and other violations of human rights
nevertheless remain commonplace in the republic.
Besides,
in 2008 the numbers started to grow again, as shown in the tables below.
Abductions,
disappearances
|
Year |
Abducted |
Set free with or without
ransom |
Found murdered |
Disappeared |
Under investigation |
|
2006 |
187 |
94 |
11 |
63 |
19 |
|
2007 |
35 |
23 |
1 |
9 |
2 |
|
2008 |
42 |
20 |
4 |
13 |
5 |
Murders
|
Year |
All |
Civilians |
Law enforcement |
Militants |
Unknown |
|
2006 |
101 |
33 |
24 |
34 |
10 |
|
2007 |
54 |
16 |
23 |
15 |
0 |
|
2008 |
72 |
24 |
20 |
18 |
10 |
In 2009, the tendency didn’t change (Appendix 2). From time to time we
get information from anonymous sources. In March 2009, we learnt that starting
from January law enforcement agencies frequently abducted residents of the
Dargo village of Vvedensky district. Officers of Memorial Human Rights Center
visited Dargo and ascertained that uniformed persons from the neighboring
Nozhay-Yurt district regularly come to take young lads and sometimes even girls
with them. As a rule, the abducted return home beaten up and intimidated in a
few days. There were registered more than 20 of such cases.
However, not all of them came back, and the fate of some abducted
persons still hasn’t been found out. Officers of Memorial Human Rights Center
applied to the Chechnya Prosecutor’s Office asking to perform a check of the
abduction facts that they had learnt about. As a result of the check, it was
established that unlawfully detained persons had been transported to
Nozhay-Yurt where they had been kept and beaten up at the deployment of the
patrol police regiment of the Chechen Republic Ministry of Interior named after
A. Kh. Kadyrov.
At that, a division of the same regiment is deployed in the village.
They don’t participate in the abductions, but they don’t prevent those from
happening either.
Prosecutor’s Office staff spoke to many residents of the Dargo village
who had been subjected to unlawful detention and had been transported to
Nozhay-Yurt. However, the victims, without refusing the facts, flatly refused
any official witnessing. On the other hand, the unlawful detentions in Dargo
stopped right after the beginning of the Prosecutor’s Office check.
It is necessary to state that in
Chechnya there has formed a totalitarian regime based on violence, delation,
and fear. Even the seminars for teachers of small schools in mountain villages
and for young human rights campaigners organized by Civic Assistance Committee
raise suspicions. Participants of the seminars have to speak “informally” to
law enforcement officers who probe to find out about seminar discussions with
Moscow human rights defenders, but in particular with their foreign colleagues.
The conversations include warnings and threats.
In summer 2008, the Chechen Republic
President Ramzan Kadyrov said it was necessary to exert pressure on relatives
of those who, in the opinion of the authorities, left for the mountains: “…we
have to make use of the Chechen customs. In the past such people were cursed
and banished.” After that there spread a
practice of setting houses of suspects on fire. A few families left their
villages after they had been threatened (Appendix 3).
Violations of women’s rights are
additionally fostered by Vaynakh traditions (Appendix 4). Forced marriages,
polygamy, marriages to underage girls are just a part of Russian law
violations, against which there is currently no protection in Chechnya.
Female students of the Chechen State
University, highly cultured modern young ladies, bitterly tell how they are
forced to wear headscarves, which they had to accept after a few expulsions.
Besides, they make them buy headscarves, and now also uniform, at a high price
and of bad quality. The girls who try objecting to the constraints are treated
rudely and without esteem by the guards, who may push them, take them by their
hands, or lead them out of the building. The girls turn out to be isolated from
the society, they cannot leave their houses in the evening, or meet at a public
place. Students speak of a lawless situation, in which women who get abducted
or married by their relatives without their consent find themselves. Not a
single one of the female students we asked was prepared to live with a future
husband who would also have other wives.
At the same time, Vaynakh traditions
contain a number of mechanisms constraining arbitrariness towards women.
Besides, in the Soviet times the women had by far more opportunities to engage
the law enforcement system on their side.
According to the RF President, the
whole state system of Russia is corrupted from top to bottom[2],
however, the level of corruption in Chechnya probably is a few times higher
than the all-Russian averages, and the corruption here is virtually open. Job
seekers pay to obtain a position at certain tariffs, and applicants to higher
education institutions also pay for admission.
On April 16, 2009, the regime of
counter-terrorist operation was repealed in Chechnya. This means that Chechnya
will be authorized to become a destination of international flights, import
goods from abroad, with the customs functioning at the airport. Federal troops
in the territory of the Chechen Republic will be regrouped, and their soldiers
will stop getting additional remuneration. Many of them are leaving Chechnya
for that reason already now.
However, there is a big question
whether all of the above will favorably affect the observation of human rights
in the Chechen Republic. And the answer to it is that, most likely, it won’t.
(See the “Chronicle of violence” by Memorial Human Rights Center on the
violations of rights in Chechnya at http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/caucas1/rubr/2/index.htm).
The main topic of our report is the
situation of Chechens in the judicial and penitentiary systems. Discrimination,
humiliation, and violation of the right to life of Chechens in prisons, as well
as the danger for any Chechen to find herself or himself on trial in court
without any guilt are recognized by the Chechen leadership and in fact do
comprise a large stratum of problems.
The
situation of prisoners from Chechnya in Russian prisons
International organizations
monitoring the state of penitentiary systems in the world more than once
equaled conditions of imprisonment in Russia to torture. In the 2007 report of
Mr. V. P. Lukin, the RF Human Rights Ombudsman, the situation in prisons is
also called “close to torture”. At that, in recent years there were noticed
certain positive changes in conditions of imprisonment: the food became better,
the problem of overcrowding is getting resolved. However, these positive
tendencies in no way touched upon the inhuman prison order, which is
characterized by an increase in cruelty, sophistication in methods of
humiliation and rude use of force, often without any rational foundation. One
of reasons for bitterness is that the law enforcement bodies, including the
penitentiary institutions, got a large influx of persons who had gone through
the war in the Chechen Republic. The majority of them bring in skills coupled
with traumatized mind and a charge of hatred acquired in the course of the
warfare, which is particularly dangerous for those who recently were perceived
as enemies.
Therefore there is a category among
the Russian convicts for whom imprisonment is connected to the direct threat to
their life and health, and that is the Russian Chechens. As a rule, the
Chechens who got their enormous terms as a result of fabricated charges are a
priori considered dangerous special offenders who are inclined to violations of
regime and to escape. If the prisoners or guards include those who served in
federal troops in the territory of Chechnya during the warfare, their attitude
towards the Chechens is easy to predict.
The majority of Chechen residents
serve their term far from home. According to Article 73 of the RF Criminal
Execution Code, as a rule the convicts serve their term in the limits of the
federal subject where they resided or were convicted. However, the Chechen
Republic until recently had no penal colony. Besides, in 2005, Article 73
underwent amendments, according to which the place of sentence completion is
chosen by the federal penitentiary body, that is, the decision is made in
Moscow[3].
Such crime categories include participation in illegal armed formations,
banditry, infringement on the life of police officers, and some others, under
which Chechnya residents as a rule get criminal convictions.
That makes it difficult for them to
see their relatives and tell them about their situation. Besides, it is only
possible for many Chechen residents to visit their imprisoned relatives thanks
to a program of the Red Cross. At that, the visitors themselves often become
subjected to persecution by the local police.
Human rights ombudsmen and non-governmental
organizations get a lot of complaints about facts of humiliation and violence
against Chechens. The discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds is also a
part of daily life of the Russian penitentiary system.
Below is described a number of cases,
about which we were informed in the course of the last year. A part of them is
taken from applications to our offices, while others come from the information
that we received from our colleagues[4].
We have received information
from the colony Tomsk-3 of the city of Tomsk that convict Islam Isayevich Taipov serving his term there is subjected to
incessant tortures and violence. Islam himself wouldn’t be able to pass a word
to his relatives: one of the convicts who were kept together with him learnt a
note by heart and asked his own relatives to relate its contents to any Chechen
who they would meet out of prison. It is necessary to underline that the
colony, in which Taipov is held, is considered a “red” zone and is known for
its cruelty, while its orders are customarily brutal. However, the way the
administration and guards treat Islam is a rarity even for that place.
Relatives of Islam
communicated that on the very first day in the colony, on May 16, 2008, he was
stripped naked, and then they hounded dogs on him. His body has scars from
their bites. After that, they kept him naked in the disciplinary cell for 15
days and beat him daily. Islam says that he himself doesn’t know how he
survived.
During their visit to Tomsk,
relatives of Islam Taipov managed to meet the warden of the colony whom they
told about their concern for Islam’s health and asked not to oppress him, to
which the warden answered that he was soon retiring and had no means to
influence whatever was going on in the colony. The same, the inability to
influence things, was stated by a troop commander.
While visiting Taipov, his
relatives (his mother and his father’s sister) noticed that he still had wounds
and scars from beating in the disciplinary cell. They tell that a strong young
fellow became a skeleton in a few months spent in jail. They only were allowed
to communicate to him via a monitor. As a robot, Islam repeated, “I’m fine, I
don’t need anything.” Next to him there sat an officer of the camp who
controlled the conversation. Not a single word in the native tongue was spoken,
as before the beginning of the conversation Taipov’s relatives had been warned
that they were permitted to speak only Russian.
Only the interference of human
rights defenders relieved the situation of the young convict.
Rustam Taipov, an uncle of Islam convicted in the same case, is kept in the federal
budget institution colony IK-11 of the Bor town in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
When Rustam was yet kept in Grozny prison right after conviction, two law
enforcement officers entered his cell, mercilessly pummeled him, and claimed
that when on zone, Rustam and everybody convicted in the same case would be
killed.
Taipov at first wasn’t beaten
in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast colony, but the pressure against him was present.
There are testimonies that the order to be “pressing” Chechens (and Georgians
after the Georgian events) came from Moscow, and if the officers of the colony
would refuse to obey it, they would soon find themselves next to those whom
they guarded. It is known that in the same colony there are former soldiers and
police officers serving terms for crimes committed while in action in Chechnya
during the warfare. Usually their crimes were violence against their own fellow
soldiers and officers, as well as theft.
On April 21, an unknown woman
called Civic Assistance Committee and told that according to her information in
IK-11 penal colony there had been created intentionally hard conditions for
convicts from Caucasus. They were beaten and humiliated, they were cruelly
punished for no reason.
Not surviving the suffering,
convicts opened their veins and stomachs. They were kept in disciplinary cells
for months, their walks were a sophisticated form of torture: the guards would
let hundreds of people into a small court where they had to spend a long time
in a jam.
During meals, prisoners
suffering from tuberculosis, hepatitis and AIDS were put at the same table as
the others and fed from the same plates and dishes as people who were yet
healthy. Illnesses were purposefully spread among the victims. As we constantly
keep hearing, convicts from Chechnya got more than others did.
The Committee sent an inquiry
to Mr. Yu. I. Kalinin, the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, asking to
verify the anonymous caller’s information.
In ten days after that we were
informed that the situation of the prisoners got better. The colony’s managers
were stirred, and the convicts were interrogated to determine from where the
information came.
Unfortunately, it is not
always and not for long that our letters have such an effect.
Farid Khayrulayevich Israilov, convicted for 5 years and serving his term in a colony
in Tomsk, according to his mother, was subjected to beating, which resulted in
broken ribs. After his mother’s complaint, the warden of the colony again beat
the prisoner and broke his nose. Following that, Israilov got 6 months of
disciplinary room. He was deprived of a long visit of his mother, who was also
humiliated when she came to the colony. She learnt about what was happening to
her son from a former prisoner who was just released after finishing his term.
He informed her that Farid was systematically beaten, and once was barely not
suffocated with a towel.
Three months later the mother still
managed to meet her son. On his right leg she saw a haematoma. She understood
that Farid’s ribs were broken from his condition. However, the colony’s medics
didn’t find any damage. A prosecutor’s office investigation didn’t result in
anything either.
Unfortunately, we have to acknowledge
that in Russian prisons there has formed a special complex of executions
applied to those professing
Islam, particularly, to those who come from the North Caucasus, Chechens and
Ingushs. Thus, it is virtually ubiquitous that those doing namaz are threatened
with punishments from guards and administration for “violations of regime”;
there is information that in some institutions the Muslim prayer is under open
prohibition. The difference between penitentiary institutions in this regard
reveals itself only in causes to such prohibition. Many Chechen prisoners tell
that they are forced to eat exclusively pork dishes, without being given any
other food. In some prisons it is even prohibited to read Koran. In one of the
colonies, while Muslims are doing the morning namaz (prayer), they turn on
frivolous “chastushkas” (folk style humorous rhymes) on the loud speakers. A
Chechen who showed his indignation against this was sent to the disciplinary
cell.
Islam Said-Akhmedovich Batsiyev, born 1977, is kept in the penal colony USH-382/4 in
the town of Pugachev of Saratov Oblast. His wife applied to
Batsiyev is not given letters
from home, they constantly put him into the disciplinary cell. After his wife’s
visit he was put into isolation ward for the term of 10 days. However, 2 months
have passed since, and he is still there.
Without any formal reason, the
management of the prison constantly threatens to transfer Batsiyev to the
prison of Balashov town where he would be put into a barrack of strict regime
as opposed to a regular zone.
In fall 2008, Memorial Human
Rights Center received information that prisoner Rizvan Balavdiyevich Taysumov is also getting sadistically
humiliated because of his religiousness. He was severely beaten up by other
convicts during convict transportation under the order of the warden of Irkutsk
prison. The beating took place at the so-called “presskhata” (a cell where
specially chosen convicts torture the disobedient ones put in there). Torturing
continued for two weeks. He was held in a cell in ropes and tortured in most
sophisticated way. For more than a year now he has been kept in the underground
of the penitentiary institution UV/8 of the town of Blagoveschensk in Amur
Oblast without access to medical aid. They don’t let his relatives meet him.
After a wounding during the warfare Taysumov gets around on crutches.
Those kept in the IK-1 colony of Nadvoitsy
village of Segerzh district of Karelia are subjected to tortures and
regular beating by armed gangs of supervisors and so called “prison commandos”.
Supervisors not only oppress Muslims, they prohibit them from praying.
Prisoners tell that Mr. Fedotov, the colony warden, personally controls the
process. Namaz is proclaimed “a violation of order” in the IK-1 concentration
camp.
There were cases when a Chechen who
asked for a permission to pray was offered to go to an Orthodox Church. There
are great many complaints about seizures of Korans, prayer rugs, and subhahs,
while making searches at the place of imprisonment. It often happens that
prison officers intentionally humiliate religious feelings of prisoners.
For instance, on July 16,
M. L. Yusupkhadzhiyev, a prisoner of the Nizhny Tagil colony, complains that Muslims are
disallowed from praying and threatened with words, “we will make you wear
crosses.” Local priest father Alexander provoked a clash between Christians and
Muslims by his insulting utterances regarding the Muslim religion.
Muslims don’t get a chance to pray. After the warden of the colony had
noticed one of the prisoners doing namaz, he summoned him and told him that he
wasn’t going to see “how Muslims stand on all fours in a barrack.” There were 7
convicts of Slavic nationality who were converts to Islam in the camp, and the
warden of the camp ordered for them all to be baptized.
At the end of 2008, Memorial Human Rights Center was approached by an
Ingush writer Isa Kodzoyev seeking
help. He told the human rights defenders that his son Zalmakh Kodzoyev serving sentence in the Udarny village of Zubova
Polyana district in the Mordovian Republic (FGU IK-4, troop 7) was kept in
unbearable conditions directly threatening not only his health, but also his
very life.
Zalmakh Kodzoyev is gravely ill. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and
lungs decay, however as a prisoner he couldn’t get the necessary medical aid.
Besides, prior to imprisonment he suffered a serious craniocerebral trauma, and
he is missing a large part of his frontal bone. Zalmakh was already hospitalized
in a very grave condition a few times, however, at this stage doctors of the
camp’s hospital cannot provide him neither with an adequate treatment, nor with
good meals. Therefore the condition of the prisoner becomes increasingly grave,
and the colony administration doesn’t permit to send him to another medical
institution. At the same time, the very climate of Mordovia is highly
detrimental to his illness. Relatives of Z. I. Kodzoyev petitioned on multiple
occasions asking to transfer him to one of the penitentiary institutions of
South Federal Region, but so far they only got refusals. Apart from
tuberculosis, Zalmakh Kodzoyev who was sentenced to 24 years of strict regime
colony suffers from consequences of dangerous craniocerebral trauma (in
connection to which he had already been operated and had to undergo a repeat
operation, but that became impossible because of his arrest). However, despite
of this, starting from the first days after his appearance at the colony, the
administration began to exert pressure on the new prisoner and to use severe
measures to “educate” him. Parents of Kodzoyev who came to see him witnessed
his extreme exhaustion; besides, there are testimonies that while under
investigation and later during transportation to the colony their son became
subject to beating and tortures.
Replying
to the inquiry made by Civic Assistance Committee, the Prosecutor’s Office gave
a detailed list of all Kodzoyev’s illnesses together with data on medical aid
he was provided with. The reply read as follows: “the Republic Diagnostic Center
carried out a magnetic resonance imaging of the brain. Medical opinion –
after-effects of the craniotomy, cystic lesions and scars on both frontal
lobes. Atrophic changes of the brain.” (Appendix 5).
Independent
medical experts came to the conclusion that Zalmakh Kodzoyev needed
hospitalization, urgent medical treatment and an operation. However, the prison
medics and administration believe that “there
are no medical contraindications to convict Z.I. Kodzoyev’s serving his term” in
the Mordovian camp.
Violence and humiliation in a specific colony are often systematically
and purposefully used on a whole group of Chechen prisoners.
In the penal colony of Nizhny
Tagil town of Sverdlovsk Oblast the cases of convicts from Chechnya and
Ingushetia are marked by a red line, which means that the prisoner is inclined
to plotting escape, without any ground for such a classification. The red line
means additional hardening of the regime. Apart from other limitations, a
convict should undergo a check every two hours.
Management uses all possible reasons to punish convicts from Caucasus,
often punishing them without a reason. In the colony there exists a special
“educational troop” where the convicts from Chechnya are kept as notorious
offenders. The decision about troop closure was made in March or April of 2007,
but it still functions.
There appeared a lot of information about special, comparatively more
difficult situation of prisoners in colonies of strict regime in Irkutsk
Oblast. There happen the same things as described above: beating, purposeful
incarceration of prisoners under conditions that are detrimental to their
health, tortures aimed at obtaining testimonies to be used for opening new
criminal cases. Relatives of these people witness that such arbitrary rule is
not perceived as anything special or illegal by the personnel of the colony.
Chechens are persecuted with full understanding of the officers’ impunity,
openly threatened with “living in a very own hell on earth”, with all measures
being taken to fulfill these threats.[5]
R.
Kh. Magomadov, whose brother is serving a
sentence in Penal colony 398/2 of Rostov city, recently informed Memorial Human
Rights Center about a new danger that got poised over his relative already in
the colony where he had been sent in 2002 after the conviction for 24 years of
strict regime by Rostov Oblast court. The prisoner told that around September
20, 2008 he had been summoned to the office of operative troop where people who
had introduced themselves as Federal Security Service officers had requested
that he write a frank confession about his participation in illegal military
formations. They had threatened that in the case of refusal they would use the
same methods of investigation as earlier, during first investigation, when they
had been obtaining a confession in the commitment of crimes, under which he had
been convicted.
Back then in 2001 when he was
abducted, he was held for about twenty days in the temporary isolation ward of
Shali town police office, where he was tortured and beaten up. They turned down
the attorney who his relatives hired for him, after she had asked that a
medicolegal examination be held upon seeing traces on the body and face of the
client. (The information is drawn from the application of R. Kh. Magomadov to
Memorial Human Rights Center).
Testimonies of relatives are often the only chance for those who suffer
from the arbitrary rule of prison authorities to appeal for aid at least in
some way. The other source of information is the words of those who are
released from the penitentiary institutions and speak up about what they had to
face in prison.
In March 2009, Memorial Human Rights Center was approached by Norwegian
human rights defenders who had become aware of violations of rights of convict
I. I. Dashayev, born on September 5, 1982, who served his term in the
institution IR 99/11 of Zvezdny village in the town of Surgut, Khanty-Mansiysk
autonomous region. They had been called by an unknown, possibly calling from
prison, and informed that Dashayev was constantly tortured, and his life was in
danger.
Colleagues passed to us the telephone
number, from which they had been called, but our attempts to contact the caller
were futile. However, in a short while we received a call from an unidentified
telephone number. The caller who refused to give his name informed us that I.
Dashayev was beaten up constantly and severely from the day of his appearance
at IR 99/11 colony on February
Ms. S.A. Gannushkina approached the
Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Yu. I. Kalinin asking to take
prompt measures to normalize the situation of Ilyas Isayevich Dashayev. The
reply came on April 2, 2009. As usual, all violations towards Dashayev were
denied, and they communicated that he was a
member of the section of discipline and order of the troop, i.e. agreed to
collaborate with administration and look after other convicts. Human rights
defenders consider these sections to be the most disgusting mechanism of
oppressing some convicts by others.
It is virtually impossible to prove
anything when applying to the Prosecutor’s Office.
There are cases when the whole
investigation is falsified, starting with medicolegal examination.
It is often not only useless, but also dangerous for prisoners to
complain to higher Russian instances. The result of visiting prisoners and
arranging media coverage often is increased pressure.
In November
In August 2008, he petitioned General V. K. Shayeshnikov, the head of
the Federal Penitentiary Service in Krasnoyarsk region.
After meeting him, Turpal-Ali started having problems. He was removed
from his work and locked up. Senior lieutenant Vaganov rudely cursed
Abdurakhmanov in front of other prisoners and told him that he was getting
transferred to Norilsk. In November 2008, Turpal-Ali called his sister and told
her that he was in Norilsk, speaking in Russian and very briefly, and one could
hear that there was somebody near him and the conversation was under control.
The sister called Memorial and said that she received a letter with a new
address from Turpal-Ali and sent him some parcels, but they were returned. The
relatives of the prisoner don’t know what to do next. Later he called them again,
but parcels still do not reach him.
The right of prisoners to see an
attorney is also violated.
Common wife of convict Shamil Khatayev, serving his sentence
in FBU LIU-7 (medical correctional facility) of the Polevoy village in the
Kirsanov district of Tambov Oblast, told it to Ms. Svetlana Gannushkina that
her husband had asked for an attorney to be sent to him promptly to prepare a
supervisory complaint and also to prevent him from being further humiliated. On
March 10, 2009, attorney V. A. Shaysipova, a member of Tambov’s office of the
Migration Rights Network, came to
the colony and, after producing her certificate of employment and her order,
asked the deputy warden of the penal institution lieutenant colonel Ye. A.
Demenkov and the warden lieutenant colonel V. A. Yurkov to arrange her visit to
the prisoner. However, she was refused, in violation of the Constitution of the
Russian Federation, the Law “On the activity of attorneys and the institution
of attorney in the Russian Federation”, and the RF Criminal Execution Code.
The ground for refusal to the
attorney was the consideration of the management of LIU-7 that she didn’t
present materials showing that she had made an agreement for provision of legal
aid with Khatayev proper. The warden of LIU-7 V. A. Yurkov requested an
official confirmation of Ms. Shaysipova’s intention to really provide Sh. E.
Khatayev with legal aid instead of, as he put it, “just looking at him”. Mr. V.
A. Yurkov said, “We already had such
facts when attorneys just came to look at a convict, to make sure he was all
fine. Khatayev is all fine, he doesn’t want to see an attorney.” The latter
was a direct lie.
In the course of an hour and a half
Mr. V. A. Yurkov and Mr. Ye. A. Demenkov along with a major who later joined
them and presented himself as the head of security service, simply humiliated
the poor woman, provoked a scandal, threatened her with administrative charges,
and said they would use physical force and throw her out of their territory, if
she wouldn’t leave voluntarily.
The attorney believes that the
management of LIU-7 intentionally violated the constitutional right of Khatayev
to defense, being afraid of publicity to be given to objectionable facts
regarding Shamil Khatayev who was put into the disciplinary cell.
Zaurbek Yunusovich Talkhigov is subject to cruel treatment in the Republic of Komi.
After an attempt to help set free hostages of Dubrovka he was sentenced to 8,5
years of incarceration in a colony of strict regime on charges of “assisting
terrorists and taking hostages.” The story of his conviction has already been
described in the report of the Migration Rights Network “On the situation of
residents of Chechnya in the Russian Federation June 2004 – June
In summer 2005, administration
of the colony applied to make the regime of Talkhigov’s incarceration stricter.
He was charged with regular violations of regime.
Violations included, for
instance, addressing a guard with a singular pronoun (which is a custom in
Zaurbek’s native land); refusal to eat with a dirty spoon, which, according to
a guard, was specially brought from tuberculosis barrack; refusal to execute
the order “lights-out” (as he hadn’t completed his prayer at that moment);
showing in a formation in new clothes without stripes (he was only given the
stripes a minute before the formation time, without thread and needle).
Even before the application
was made, Zaurbek received and served disciplinary punishments for all of the
above transgressions.
On August 11,
In June 2006, Zaurbek felt
seriously ill and asked to see a doctor. The results of analyses showed that he
was ill with a serious infection, hepatitis-C, which he contracted while in
prison. However, as a matter of course, it didn’t affect the conditions, under
which he served his sentence.
After the return to colony, to the severe climate of the Republic of
Komi, his illness started progressing again. In 2007, they sent him to a
hospital for an operation, but the doctors refused to do it.
In December 2008, Zaurbek got unlucky again: they refused him a long
visit of his mother and sister who had already arrived. Zaurbek had the right
to the visit already since spring, but his relatives could only save the money
and come in the end of the year. At the day of their arrival Zaurbek was punished
for smoking in a place where it was prohibited. They put him in a barrack of
strict regime (usually a poorly heated space) for three months. It was for the
first time that Talkhigov tried to excuse himself and asked not to punish him
with the cancellation of the visit. But the repentance didn’t help, and the
humiliating punishment was left in force.
In February 2009, an attorney invited by Memorial Human Rights was sent
to Zaurbek. The attorney described his bad physical condition and was ready to
petition against his being kept in a barrack of strict regime. However, the
reaction of the administration and visitors from the Federal Security Service
was such that Zaurbek turned down the attorney’s help fearing for his
relatives’ lives.
Very recently, a failure ended the
attempt of Z. Murtazalieva, a convict on fabricated charges, and her attorney
for her to get released on parole.
The court of Zubova Polyana district
in the Mordovian Republic considered eight applications for early release on
parole. Seven of them were granted. The only refusal was to Zara Murtazaliyeva,
convicted in 2005 on the charge of terrorist act attempt in the Okhotny Ryad
trade center.
In March 2004, Zara, trying to hide
from the Chechen war in Moscow, met two Russian women who had converted to
Islam in a mosque. It happened during a large-scale anti-Chechen company, when
those who came from the North Caucasus were blamed as the worst sinners.
Security services spied on the mates. And Zara unwisely spoke to the mates
about the injustice of warfare in Chechnya.
Zara was detained for the lack of
registration, but then they “found” explosives in her bag at the police
station. Moscow City court sentenced her to 9 years of imprisonment. It has
been publicly spoken many times that the case of Murtazaliyeva is full of
discrepancies. The President of Chechnya R. Kadyrov also claimed that the girl
was innocent. And now, after almost five years after the arrest, when Zara
served more than half of the term, she tried to get released early on parole.
According to Murtazaliyeva, there is no way she can clear the penalties she got
from the administration of the colony, “not a single stimulation I receive for
my work is approved by the management.” In September 2005, Murtazaliyeva was
reported as “keeping a skirt of undetermined kind”, eight months later they
reported her for “making her bed inaccurately”. Later, as the term for early
release approached, the penalties became more frequent. “She didn’t wake at the
‘reveille’ signal”, “violated the standard for closing”, “quarreled with a
convict”, “didn’t come to the canteen for the intake of food”. There were 13
penalties altogether. It is needless to say that Murtazaliyeva cannot appeal
against these penalties in court order. She doesn’t have the money for
attorneys who could do such a thankless work.
Attorney M. Morozova who defended
Zara on the commission from Memorial Human Rights Center asked the court to
take into account that nobody suffered as a result of Murtazaliyeva’s actions,
that there existed a special solicitation about her from the government of
Chechnya, and that she was guaranteed a job in the office of the Chechen
ombudsman in Grozny. However, the reference for Murtazaliyeva from the colony
administration (“registered as a terrorist, indifferent to the life of the
troop, admits conflicts with administration”) and, mainly, the ethnicity of the
prisoner and the nature of the article, under which she was convicted, proved
to be the most important. After such an evaluation it became clear that nobody
is going to release Zara. Judge E. Kuzmin refused an early release on parole to
Murtazaliyeva. Commenting on this decision, her attorney said symbolic words,
“The judge just couldn’t act differently. They don’t release early under such
articles.” In the course of that day seven other applications were considered,
and they were all granted, though the articles were no less grave than the one,
under which Murtazaliyeva was sentenced.
The illegal interference into the
right of prisoners to appeal to the European Court is characteristic for the
whole Russian prison system. According to the effective legislation, complaints
to the Court are not a part of correspondence that is subject to examination by
administration of the institutions of confinement (Article 21 of the Federal
law No. 103 “On the detention of suspects and those charged with crimes” of
July 15, 1995). These amendments undoubtedly protect the right of prisoners to
appeal to the European Court. But in practice it is clearly not enough for
prisoner applicants to European Court to avoid pressure and persecutions on the
part of their institution’s administration.
On July 30, 2008, Shamsudi Said-Khuseynovich Abdulkadyrov
serving sentence in IK-18 colony of the Murmashi village in Murmansk Oblast
started a hunger strike. He protested against unjust attitude to him in the
prison management suspecting that it had to do with his having lodged a
complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. Abdulkadyrov was punished
for slightest causes and without them, and, on April 24, he was severely beaten
up by prison officers, at that the warden was among those who humiliated him.
Shamsudi Abdulkadyrov, born 1981,
underwent the amnesty procedure in 2003, however, on January 16, 2004, he was
arrested and convicted by the Supreme Court of the
On March 21, 2008, Shamsudi was
transferred from usual conditions of incarceration to strict ones, as he was
acknowledged to be a persistent violator of regime.
Together with him there was put
Eugeny Viktorovich Timoshin who is also an applicant to the European Court
since March 2005. While talking to a Migration Rights officer, he noticed that
Abdulkadyrov was not only constantly isolated in his camera, but they also
created a vacuum around him, punishing everybody who contacted him.
Timoshin and two other Muslims, V. B.
Spitsin and R. Aslanov, joined the hunger strike started by Sh. Abdulkadyrov.
They were on strike till August 20, 2008. The reason for this was not only the
persecution of those who complained to the European Court, but also the
prohibition to do namaz and read Koran.
All four of them were transported to
hospital in stretchers. By the end of the hunger strike they couldn’t even
talk, being completely weakened.
The conditions in hospital weren’t as
hard as in prison proper, and Shamsudi Abdulkadyrov felt better, but there was
no guarantee that lawless actions against him and other participants of the hunger strike wouldn’t be repeated.
Medical assistance is difficult to obtain both during transportation and
in prison. There are cases when even four months after arrival the prisoner’s
location remains unknown, and then human rights defenders have to step in. For
instance, a prisoner from
Those whose term is about over are particularly vulnerable. In some
colonies they create favorable conditions for law enforcement officers who
force those who are already preparing for freedom to confess to committing some
undetected crime by torture. Such vicious practice flourished in Chernokozovo
before spring 2008 where such prisoners were also forced to pay for the
possibility to get released on time.
Provocations of other prisoners
aiming at convicts from the Chechen Republic are not always suppressed by the
guards. There have already been established a number of cases when Chechen
prisoners of Russian prisons perished. Their relatives are afraid to demand
investigations of death cases, which can quite possibly turn out to be murders.
For instance, on July 1,
In fall 2007, the corpse of Mr.
Bichkarev, a resident of Shelkovskoy district of the Chechen republic, who also
died in prison under strange circumstances, was brought to his relatives.
In Udmurtia, Islam Shepovich
Serbiyev, born 1977, was beaten up so severely that he was sent to the
medical unit.
Dzhamalay Shamkhanovich
Aliyev, born 1979, was sentenced to 13 years under
Article 208 and Article 209 of the RF Criminal Code in 2003. He began the
completion of his sentence in Vladikavkaz, however, after the terrorist act
committed in Beslan, he was again sent to investigation ward where he was kept
for three months and then transported to the city of Syktyvkar. In a month after
his arrival, he was sent to investigation ward one more time, this time in the
village Verkhny Chev in
It also greatly facilitates committing crimes against prisoners that
though according to the law officers of the Federal Penitentiary Service have
to inform relatives about the place of a prisoner’s incarceration within four
months, cases are frequent when no information about prisoners comes in a very
long time. In this time crimes are often committed against the prisoner in
transportation prisons, there are particularly many complaints regarding
colonies of Chelyabinsk and Irkutsk.
In such cases it is difficult for victims to file a claim with the
prosecutor’s office also because visible traces of beating abate in time, while
serious medical examinations are not accessible. Impunity lets administrations
of colonies abuse power, punishing for a long time for minor violations of
regime, as a result of which some prisoners don’t leave disciplinary cells for
months or even years.
Ismail Amelyevich Tatayev spent almost two years in solitary confinement at the FGU IK-9 colony of
Volgograd Oblast. During all of this time his relatives barely managed to
obtain short visits to the prisoner, at that the administration of the colony
used all possible means to put obstacles in their way.
Answering the inquiry by Ms. S. A. Gannushkina to the Prosecutor
General’s Office, the head of the division on supervision of criminal sentences
completion lawfulness replied that he didn’t see grounds for repealing measures
of Tatayev’s punishment.
The practice of refusing visits from relatives is especially painful for
those who can only visit from far away. Nebi Tatayeva, Ismail’s mother, came to
visit him for the first time in June 2007.
In the beginning of November 2007, they authorized a two days visit. She
came to visit the son with two daughters of Ismail, but was one day late for
the indicated date, so the visit only lasted one day.
The attorney of the Migration Rights Network who tried to help Ismail
sent him a certified letter with blanks of warrants for attorneys of the
European Court, which he had to fill in and sign. I. Tatayev indeed received
the blanks, signed them and gave the letter with warrants to the deputy warden
for mailing. However, the warrants never came back to the lawyer. During a visit,
his mother could secretly bring in the blanks and bring them out filled in and
signed. In January 2009, Ismail called his mother’s cellular phone and told her
that they transferred him to a troop of strict regime.
During the last visit the mother was told that the son may call her on
14’s day of every month and she passed phone cards costing 1,5 thousand rubles
to him. Since then there was only one call.
In the phone conversation that lasted two minutes, Ismail told to his mother that in March he would get permission for
a visit of 4 days from his relatives. In almost two years at this colony he
obtained a long visit only once and only for one day. Nebi saved money for the
visit to her son for a long time and, without getting a repeat call and seeing
that March was at its end, she went to the colony together with Ismail’s wife
Makka and three small daughters (the eldest of whom had 6,5 years of age). Upon
arrival to the colony, she learnt that Ismail was punished and he wouldn’t get
a visit.
A visit of 2 hours was still granted after Nebi lost her consciousness
because of the nervous pressure. She used the occasion to pass a parcel to the
son, but he never got anything of what she passed. The next 2 hours visit took
place in August of the same year, and again Tatayev didn’t get the parcel.
According to his mother, Ismail’s health is in horrible condition, his
heart, liver, and kidneys are all diseased. For half a year he ate only bread,
which he was given together with the food, because the food was made with pork
fat.
During her visits, the mother usually examines the body of her son to
see the traces of violence. This time the son refused to take off his coat, and
she thought that he had traces of injuries on his body. While visiting,
relatives are allowed to bring food to convicts, but they didn’t let Ismail
take anything and didn’t even take the parcel. A transfer of 1000 rubles sent
by Ismail’s mother on January 24 was never received.
The case of Tatayev is not singular. Volgograd colonies are among the
leaders in violating convicts’ rights. Convicts informed human rights defenders
that R. B. Daudov born in Urus-Martan village and serving his term at one of
the colonies was put into a cell from his first days in the colony and spent
there already a few years, being subject to tortures. Relatives don’t come to
see him, though he has many. Convicts asked to help him.
We would like to put a special emphasis on the story of Zubayr Zubayrayev, which became known
all around the world and drew attention also because Zubayr was naive enough to
believe that peace came to Chechnya and returned to the native land from
abroad.
Zubayr Zubayrayev was born and grew up in the Tolstoy-Yurt village not
far from Grozny. He was the fifth child in a family, the only boy among five
sisters. When Zubayr was 14, his father died in an accident. Zubayr was left
the only man in the household. Now a married man and provider of his mother and
sisters, he took part in neither of the two Chechen wars. His family
participated in antimilitary actions and pickets, and sometimes their house
hosted refugees from Grozny, peaceful men, both Russians and Chechens.
However, even this could become a serious ground for suspicions on the
part of security services. Many cases are known where they arrested people as
militants and terrorists without any cause whatsoever. Zubayr was informed a
few times that he got “blacklisted”, and his relatives insisted that he leave.
In Austria there live relatives of Zubayrayevs, and Zubayr and his wife Madina
moved in with them in 2004.
They lived there for a little bit more than year. In 2006, Zubayr learnt
that his mother was diagnosed with cancer and that she needed to go to
treatments regularly, while there was nobody to bring there the old woman who
lived in a village for all of her life. Zubayr, his wife and a small son born
in Vienna went to the homeland. Possibly, they considered that suspicions that
made them leave were no longer topical, and now hardly anybody would think of
laying farfetched accusations against Zubayr.
Indeed, at first nobody bothered the family. The mother of Zubayr grew
better, and, after a prolonged treatment in hospital in the city of Rostov, she
came back home.
However, on February 23, 2007, Zubayrayev went missing. For three months
his relatives were looking for him and finally found him in the district police
office of the Groznensky district.
As Malika, Zubayr’s sister[6],
tells, it was already there that he became subject to torture, “they would pull out his nails, torture him
with electric shock, trying to get information about some fighters, a
confession that he knew them.” Besides, he was constantly threatened with
new tortures, and if he wouldn’t confess to crimes made up by the
investigation, his relatives might also get persecuted. They also threatened
the pregnant wife of Zubayr who got into hospital after his disappearance.
In the beginning of June 2007, Zubayr told to his sisters who managed to
get to see him that he had defamed himself, having given in to severe pressure.
The Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic sentenced him to 5 years imprisonment
on charges of infringement on law enforcement officer’s life (Article 317 of
the Criminal Code) and illegal possession of weapons (Article 222). Zubayrayev
was transported form Chechnya to the 25th colony in Volgograd Oblast (Frolovo
village).
Things that happened to him subsequently can hardly be called tortures,
for it was tortures, which didn’t have any specific goal. It was more than once
that he became subject to beating. Officers of the colony simply burst into the
cell of Zubayrayev and started to beat him, including striking him on the head
with plastic bottles filled with water till he would lose consciousness. Zubayr
who was a strong and healthy man before his arrest began to suffer from
frequent pain in the heart, kidneys, and liver. In a few months they virtually
turned him into an invalid.
Zubayr complained against the deputy warden of the colony who was among
those who beat him. A criminal case was brought in at the fact of serious
bodily assault. Zubayrayev was transferred to the colony 9 of Volgograd City
wherefrom they sent him to LIU-
Malika and Fatima Zubayrayevs were allowed to see their brother only on
the condition that they would make him sign the required paper. Upon seeing
Zubayr, they were amazed at his condition. “Zubayr
was maimed to the degree that he couldn’t move on his own, and recognized us
only by voice,” Malika told to a journalist. “When I asked why my brother was in such a condition, officers of the
colony answered that Zubayr who before his imprisonment never suffered from
epilepsy had fallen twice during an attack and damaged his head.[7]”
Media started covering things happening to Zubayr.
A group of human rights defenders
visited Volgograd on November 9-10,
The fate of the prisoner from Chechnya attracted attention of both
Russian and western human rights defenders (a picket in Novopushkinsky Square
in November 2008, statements of Amnesty International in Zubayrayev’s defense[10],
etc.). However, neither the reaction of international community, nor
publications in media, nor the above-mentioned visit of Mr. I. Ezhiyev to the
colony changed the convict’s situation. After the departure of human rights
defenders Zubayrayv was again put into disciplinary cell.
On
February 11,
A sister of Zubayrayev told that the management of the colony threatened
to finish Zubayrayev off, if he doesn’t stop complaining to human rights
defenders. She herself started getting threats both from law enforcement
officers in Chechnya proper and from those working in the Volograd office of
the Federal Penitentiary Service.
“We have to organize a
committee including a representative of the RF Human Rights Ombudsman, officers
of the Chief Office of the RF Federal Penitentiary Service, members of the
Public Chamber’s expert committee on human rights in the Chechen Republic,
Volgograd human rights defenders and representatives of the prosecutor’s
office,” said Mr. Imran Ezhiyev. “This committee should question both convicts and officers of LIU-15
who is connected to the situation around Zubayr.”
The
tortures temporarily stopped after the press conference. However, on March 13
there was taken a court decision following a petition from the administration
of the colony on the transfer of Zubayrayev to prison for further sentence
completion, i.e. the conditions of his incarceration were made stricter.
In reply, the Ombudsman’s office sent a copy of colony administration’s
letter where Zubayrayev is charged with self-injury and self-aggression. “In each case of autoagression Z. I.
Zubayrayev was provided with necessary medical aid,” asserted the letter.
On March 22, Memorial Human Rights Center hired attorney Mussa Khadisov
for representing Zubayrayev, and the attorney immediately left for Volgograd to
make sure one more time that the convict was subject to torture. Attorney
Khadisov filed a complaint against Zubayrayev’s transfer to prison.
The arrival of Mr. Mussa Khadisov turned out to be very timely. Ms.
Yelena Maglevannaya, a journalist and human rights defender who did a lot to
inform the public about Zubayrayev’s situation, started having problems. On
March 20, the administration of LIU-15 filed a claim against her defending its
honor and business reputation.
Officers of the colony sought compensation for damage to their business
reputation first in the size of 5 and then 500 thousand rubles, accompanied by
an apology. The text that in their opinion should be read by Yelena
Maglevannaya begins as follows, “Officers
of the criminal execution system serve to the state, and this service requires
courage, endurance, restraint and complete devotion from them…”
On March 26, 2009, Mr. Mussa Khadisov, the attorney of Zubayr Zubayrayev
spoke at the first hearing of Ye. Maglevannaya’s case in
The attitude towards Zubayrayev in particular and to the Chechens in
general of a doctor, assistant to the head of regional office of the Federal
Penitentiary Service on the observation of human rights in penal institutions
and colony warden ad interim is described in the chapter “On the Image of the
Enemy in Mass Consciousness” of the present report. These are persons whose
opinions and past should be investigated into at appointment to their posts,
and they cannot be objective neither to Zybayrayev, nor to any other person who
will dare to act in his defense.
Court hearings continued on May 12 and May 14. The court flatly denied it to representatives of Maglevannya to call Zubayr Zubayrayev himself to witness at the hearing, possibly, because the very sight of the exhausted person would turn down all claims of colony officers that he hadn’t been subject to any tortures. During the hearings, the plaintiff’s side demonstrated some video recordings, allegedly confirming that Zubayrayev injuries were self-inflicted. However, witnesses claimed they could see nothing like that in the recordings. Despite that, the court accepted the claim and sentenced Ms. Yelena Maglevannaya to a fine of 200 thousand rubles.
However, the imprisonment of Zubayr is still tumultuous. His relatives
were informed that they put a person into his cell who was convinced that
relatives of Zubayr were guilty of the death of his father. The neighbor is a
constant threat. But that’s not the end of it all. On April 12, the relatives
learnt again that Zubayr was getting beaten up in prison. The local lawyer who
they commissioned, Mr. Edal-Bek Magomadov, asked for a permission to visit the
client. He was only allowed a visit on April 23. As a consequence of his visit,
he petitioned the warden of LIU-15:
“On April 23, 2009, when
visiting convict Z. I. Zubayrayev in the colony LIU-15 of the city of Volgograd
I found traces of beating, haematomas, and bruises on the body of Z. I.
Zubayrayev. The worst bruises were located in the area of shoulders, breast,
and ribs. The lower back in the area of the waist also has traces of beating.
The indicated bodily injuries were inflicted on convict Z. I. Zubayrayev on April
10 and 12, 2009… I asked for the doctor or warden of the institution to be
called to the meeting room in order to have the above-mentioned injuries
recorded, to which there was given a flat refuse.”
The story of Zubayr Zubayrayev continues.
The information about cruel treatment of prisoners comes in almost
daily.
On May 6, 2009, we received the following letter of a Chechen refugee
from colleagues in Norway about the above-mentioned Rizvan Taisumov:
“I have emergency business. I have received information that some lad Rezvan Taysumov who is now kept in prison is being transferred to a different camp where there have already happened murders of those who come from the same parts as I.
Even here they beat him on various farfetched causes, and now they just
send him to die. Today he should get to FBU IK/2 Single Space of Cell Type at
the address Vozzhayevka station, Amur Oblast.
Furthermore, at the same zone IK/2 they have Mr. Ibragim Alaudinovich
Katsayev, this person is kept under strong press and humiliated. The help of
human rights defenders is needed.”
Another letter came in 5 days:
“Very recently a Russian lad has hanged himself because of violence from
other prisoners who work for administration in the camp whereto they are
transferring Rezvan Taysumov. He didn’t survive humiliation and violence. The
name of the lad was Artyom Yuryevich Morozov.”
The latter message was verified by our attorney working in Amur Oblast.
Morozov was indeed found hanged on May 9. He had been sentenced to 3.5 years of
imprisonment. The day before his death a psychologist spoke to him who stated
that Artyom Morozov’s mood wasn’t at all gloomy, and he was interested in
learning about the procedure for obtaining a long visit from relatives. It will
hardly ever become known whether it was a suicide or a murder.
Things that happened to Artyom Morozov show the overall level of common
troubles in certain penal institutions in the Russian Federation. It is exactly
such institutions where they often send residents of the Chechen Republic for
serving their sentences.
Fabrication of criminal
cases
Mass fabrication of criminal cases became the most cruel and cynical
form of persecuting Chechens.
The standard mechanism of persecution is simple: when performing housing
or body search, police officers plant a small amount of narcotics, bullets, a
grenade, or explosives, and then, after having detained the citizen, they wring
a confession out of him or her. At that, there is often no other grounds to
check papers, do a body or housing search than close attention of law
enforcement bodies to persons of a specific ethnic background.
In December 2007, before the elections,
Persons from Chechnya by origin get special attention at the passport
control when crossing borders. They are delayed, their passports are taken away
for additional checks. There were cases when the passport control lasted so
long that it resulted in missing the plane. For instance, in December 2007, Ms.
Lydia Yusupova, a nominee for the Nobel peace prize, missed her plane to Italy
at Sheremetyevo airport. In summer 2008, the situation repeated twice at
Vnukovo airport, as participants of the rehabilitation seminar organized by
Memorial Human Rights Center for its officers were flying out and flying back
in. At that, a special one hour check was performed for those whose origin was
Chechnya without any explanation. One of the Chechens nearly got detained for
expressing discontent with that. The chief of brigade threatened him with a
court trial and falsified his replies on the fly. The process could only be
stopped when the head of the group produced a member certificate of RF
President’s Council on Human Rights.
It is obvious that all this is taking place at secret directions from
higher-ups, though it is also consistent with the general xenophobic attitude
towards Chechens.
Even though the criminal cases are fabricated in a very obvious manner,
those charged with criminal offences as a rule are not acquitted. The best that
attorneys can manage is return cases for further investigation or obtain a
conditional sentence.
Sometimes investigators offer small terms or conditional sentences in
return for a confession, which is a corollary proof of the groundlessness of
charges. However, there are known many cases when a defendant is imprisoned for
a long time on fabricated charges.
U. Batukayev, R. Musayev, and L. Khamiyev from Chechnya are still detained following their
arrest in May 2007. On
November 1, 2008, the Moscow city court prolongued again the term of their
arrest (till January 5, 2009, for the accused Lors Khamiyev, till January 8,
2009, for Umar Batukayev and Ruslan Musayev, as Gazeta.Ru informs with a
referral to RIA Novosti).
Umar Batukayev, Ruslan Musayev, and Lors Khamiyev are being charged with
the intention to blow up a car with explosives. The case is investigated by the
Federal Security Service, therefore the suspects are kept in the Lefortovo
investigation ward of the Service. According to the investigation’s story, the
accused were a part of a terrorist group headed by Lors Khamiyev. At the order
of the latter, Umar Batukayev, a student at the Academy of Economics and Law,
and Ruslan Musayev, a graduate of the Moscow banking institute, bought VAZ-2107
car and turned it into a car bomb. The day before the Victory day, Federal
Security Service officers found and then defused the car using a robot. At
first the investigation worked on the story about Chechens preparing to blow up
the car during the celebration of the Victory day. However, now the Federal
Security Service officers believe that the suspects prepared an attempt on the
life of the Chechnya President Ramzan Kadyrov. According to the investigation,
they were planning to murder the head of the republic during his participation
in the holiday celebrations at the capital. Original articles of the RF
Criminal Code, under which the accused were being prosecuted (“Illegal
possession and transportation of weapons”, “Attempt of a terrorist act”, etc.)
were reinforced by the article “Preparation of an attempt on life of a state or
public figure.”
Attorney M. Musayev believes that the prosecution didn’t find direct
proofs of his client’s guilt and is based solely on hypotheses of the
investigators.
One could suggest that the accusation of an attempt on Kadyrov’s life
was added to deprive the suspects of support from Chechnya.
The process was in its very beginning when all suspects on the case were
made to take some medicaments, as a result of which Mr. Ruslan Musayev lost
consciousness in the courtroom during the determination of a measure of
restriction. They had to call an emergency to get him back to senses. Mr.
Batukayev, who has since been kept under arrest in Lefortovo is not allowed
visits from his relatives. This is a well-known instrument of psychological
pressure on those under investigation.
The court hearings on the case weren’t public. On April 2, 2009, the
Moscow City court sentenced the defendants to the terms of between five and
eight years in a colony of strict regime. Specifically, Lors Khamiyev was
sentenced to eight years in a colony of strict regime and Umar Batukayev was
sentenced to five years in a colony of common regime. The accused Ruslan
Musayev was acquitted, he didn’t get any term. However, the reason for that
wasn’t stated by the judge as the motivational part of the sentence wasn’t
pronounced in the open court hearing.
Persons originally from the Chechen Republic cannot feel safe in the RF
territory: they constantly are in the “risk group”, under the threat that they
will have to bear responsibility for crimes that they didn’t commit. The
stories are rare that would both confirm it and finish favorably to their
heroes.
On December 12, 2007, Mr. Mokhmad
Betmirzayev, thrice champion of Russia and the World in kickboxing, was
detained at Vnukovo airport in Moscow.
Agents explained to him that they wanted to question him in connection
with the murder of some Ms. Smirnova, committed on January 27, 2007.
Betmirzayev explained that he didn’t know the woman. On December 20, 2007 he
was nevertheless charged with the murder, and Savelovsky district court issued
an order for his arrest.
Some muscovite Ye. M. Smirnova was beaten to death with bats by two
unknown persons. According to the hypotheses of the detectives, Smirnova,
having quarreled with a friend of hers, started calling his acquaintances on
the telephone, terrorizing them with her calls. Some of them organized her
murder so that she wouldn’t bother them any further. Investigators interrogated
persons whom Smirnova called, but they couldn’t collect any proofs confirming
their guilt in her murder. There was a person among those interrogated whom
Smirnova called particularly often. He mentioned Mokhmad Betmirzayev as his
close friend, and this turned out to be enough formal reason for an arrest.
Not a single proof of Betmirzayev’s connection to the murder of Smirnova
was found. Moreover, the investigative actions and expert examinations
undertaken under the case confirmed groundlessness of criminal charges against
him. Thus, as is stated in the material of the criminal case, there were found
a baseball bat, cigarette ends, two used syringes, chewing gum, and traces of
blood at the place of the event. But the records of occurrence site survey
weren’t presented to the defendant’s side, despite numerous applications.
According to forensic biological and genetic tests, Mokhmad Betmirzayev doesn’t
have anything to do with the evidence found, and the murder weapon doesn’t have
his finger imprints. This didn’t prevent investigators from passing the case to
the Moscow military prosecutor’s office.
During all of the year preceding detention, Betmirzayev participated in
numerous sport events and often went abroad. Had he wanted to flee from
justice, he would have many opportunities to do that. He was charged 11 months
after the murder, right at the end of the year, when they had to draw up
balance and report about the investigation success.
The ombudsman in the Chechen Republic Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, when addressing
the prosecutor of Moscow Yuri Syomin on the case of Betmirzayev, notes that the
agents who detained the sportsman at the airport asked whether he had money,
rich relatives in Moscow, assistance from the Diaspora, and pressed him to make
a confession that he committed the murder.
Mr. Nukhazhiyev noted[12],
“It is clear from the investigator’s
resolutions and circumstances of the criminal case that the preliminary
investigation exhausted all procedural possibilities for proving the
defendant’s guilt from the very start.”
In his address, Mr. Nurdi Nukhazhiyev asked the prosecutor of Moscow to take measures to stop the ungrounded criminal proceedings against Mokhmad Betmirzayev and direct the efforts of investigators towards the establishment of the real initiators of the crime.
Defending the arrested champion, representatives of the Chechen ministry
of sport, deputy chair of the Chechen government Ziyad Sabasbi, and a
representative of the kickboxing federation of
The active defense of Mokhmad organized by his father Adlan Betmirzayev
who was a human rights campaigner for many years and is well known to the human
rights protection community led to a success.
After eight months spent in detention, Mokhamd Betmirzayev was released
without the right to leave Moscow.
Even having served a sentence, a Chechen cannot be sure of regaining
freedom.
In 2005, Movsar Beksultanov,
a resident of Achkhoy-Martan where the Voronezh police special task force troop
is stationed, was sentenced for participating in illegal military formations.
The defense managed to prove that Beksultanov was tortured during
investigation, and a criminal case was brought in on facts of illegal methods
of investigation. But this didn’t stop the prosecution, and Movsar served three
years in the colony 2 of the city of Voronezh. About a month prior to release
date, he was visited in the colony by the chief of the Zheleznodorozhny police
office of Voronezh Vyacheslav Kulikov who served as the head of criminal police
in Achkhoy-Martan. Kulikov demanded that Movsar write a new confession on his
case. “Otherwise they will meet you at the exit from the colony and give you a
new term. You won’t survive four years somewhere next to Magadan with your
gastric ulcer.” Beksultanov refused to defame himself.
On June 16, 2008 during the day when Movsar Beksultanov was scheduled to
be released, his relatives, father, mother, and a five years old niece, came to
meet him. All of them, including the girl, were detained. They were brought to
the district office of Voronezh police where they spent 3 hours without any
explanations. (A characteristic feature of such cases is that no traces of
detention can be found. The inquiry about ungrounded detention of a few persons
including a child that we sent to the prosecutor’s office had a standard reply,
“the facts you conveyed weren’t confirmed under an objective verification.”)
While those meeting him were in detention, Movsar Beksultanov left the
prison and was immediately stopped by police officers in civilian clothing. He
gave them the release certificate, after which they virtually abducted him:
handcuffed him, and, having covered his head with prison overalls, forced him
into a car.
The officers later explained the abduction with absurd causes, for a
moment claiming that a grenade was found in his bag, then telling about some
cellmate who threatened to kill Beksultanov for some offence. Finally, they
said that narcotics were found in Beksultanov’s Koran (!), held by the officers
in their hands for some time.
After this Movsar was brought to the district police office of the
After two days (during detention without a court order for 48 hours),
Beksultanov was brought to the court for choosing a measure of restriction.
There Beksultanov “learnt” that he was detained on June 16 at 23.00 (that is 8
hours later than the factual detention time) next to the colony for disorderly
conduct, and narcotics were found on hum in the course of a body search. A new
criminal case against Movsar Beksultanov was brought in.
The fabrication of a new case and the court trial didn’t take place,
however. The judge of the Central district of the city of Voronezh didn’t
sanction Movsar Beksultanov’s arrest, disbelieving his guilt. Zoya Svetova
quotes the attorney Yelena Kuznetsova’s words in her article “How a release
from prison turns into a new term of imprisonment”[13]:
“One has to give credit to the judge who
understood the situation very well. How could a convict who just got released
bring narcotics out of the colony? They do body search when releasing them. It
means that Movsar was leaving the zone without the narcotics, and two minutes
later the narcotics appeared. Besides, the colony is equipped with permanent
video surveillance. It is surprising, but the investigator remembered about
this only in five days. Apparently, she knew it only too well that the record
was by then destroyed.”
Movsar was aided both by Voronezh and Moscow human rights defenders
(including Mr. Bitutsky, an attorney of the Migration Rights Network) and also
by the human rights ombudsman in Chechnya and reporters. In a few months the
case on the narcotics found in Koran was dropped because of the absence of
corpus delicti.
It is not at all always that efforts of public campaigns bring at least
relative success.
In May 2008, Civic Assistance committee was approached by Zareta
Dzhanaraliyeva, a sister of Lechi
Musayevich Dzhanaraliyev, about
whom Memorial Human Rights Center had already reported[14].
Lechi Dzhanaraliyev, born 1980, an officer of the district police office of Zavodskoy
district was found guilty of banditry and sentenced to 12 years in prison by
the Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic. He is gravely ill, and they were
obliged to release him because of his health condition. However, instead the
Federal Penitentiary Service decided to transport Dzhanaraliyev to Mordovia.
Lechi Dzhanaraliyev was detained on April 8, 2005. He went in a car of
his neighbor who volunteered to take him home. On the road, Lechi’s
acquaintance ignored the requests to stop from the military. They opened
destruction fire at the car. The driver was killed, and they found a gun on
him. Lechi Dzhanaraliyev was wounded in the head and in the spine. After
detention he spent about a month in the city hospital 9. Upon treatment
completion the doctors said that Dzhanaraliyev would need a repeat operation in
a year. He needed a skull trepanation and plastic prosthetics. Dzhanaraliyev
obtained the status of invalid of the 1st group. In the course of the trial
they brought him into the courtroom in a stretcher. Despite Dzhanaraliyev not
having much in common with his neighbor and became disabled as a result of
severe wounding, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to 13 years of
imprisonment in a colony of strict regime. In August 2005, the Supreme Court of
the Chechen Republic, a cassation instance, dropped the charge of possessing
weapons, but left “banditry” in place (how is it possible without weapons?).
The term of punishment became half a year shorter.
At first Dzhanaraliyev served his sentence in the town of Georgiyevsk of
Stavropol region. On March 19,
They returned Lechi to the Chechen Republic and put him into the investigation
ward
However, soon after that Dzhanaraliyev was transferred to the
investigation ward of Chernokozovo village instead of release. He was kept
there for about two weeks.
The final decision on his release had to be made by the court. However, Mr. V. A. Agarkov, a judge of Georgiyevsk town court, didn’t agree with the opinion of the medics. His resolution reads as follows, “Despite Mr. Dzhanaraliyev’s “suffering from diseases on the ‘List of Diseases Preventing from Sentence Completion’, his life is currently not in danger, and he is capable of completing his sentence in a specialized medical institution in a colony…”
In the end of May 2008, Lechi’s family was informed that they intended
to transport him to Mordovia. The medical opinion that Dzhanaraliyev should be
set free for health reasons was ignored.
Upon learning about such a decision, his relatives applied to Memorial
Human Rights Center and to the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman in the
Chechen Republic. The decision on transportation was appealed against, and the
complaint of Dzhanaraliyev was still at the stage of consideration on June 30,
when he was transported to the investigation ward of the city of Pyatigorsk,
and further to Mordovia.
According to the words of witnesses, fellow convicts who were
transported together with Dzhanaraliyev, the treatment of Lechi by the officers
of the investigation ward were inhuman. The convoy took him from the cell where
he was located, dragged him to the car, and threw him into it, sending him by
usual means of transportation without a doctor.
Neither human rights defenders, nor the Human Rights Ombudsman could
resist the cruelty of the court. One could suggest that this is a form of
revenge for Lechi Dzhanaraliyev’s refusal to plead guilty despite of all of the
efforts of the investigation and judges.
According to Ms. Zareta Dzhanaraliyeva, the sister of Lechi who visited
him in Mordovia, the condition of her brother was extremely grave, he was
emaciated to exhaustion, suffered from severe headaches, couldn’t service
himself, and needed urgent and radical medical aid. Memorial Human Rights
Center commissioned an attorney to defend Dzhanaraliyev, but so far he couldn’t
meet his client.
On March 23, 2009, Civic Assistance Committee was approached by the
representative of the Chechen Ministry of Health Ms. Satsita Uspayeva who for
many years cooperated with the Committee on providing residents of the Chechen
Republic with medical aid.
It was the more unexpected for the non-governmental organization’s
officers when Satsita told them that on October 21, 2008, her husband, Mr. Akhiyad Magomedzhovich Baysarov, was
sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment on a charge of abduction.
The abduction took place in Moscow in 1999. The abducted, Mr. Serzhik
Dzhilavyan, was supposed to meet up with Akhiyad Baysarov, but was forcedly
taken away from the place of meeting and kept in isolation for 11 days. After
his release, Dzhilavyan lodged an application with the law enforcement bodies
where he mentioned the failed meeting with Baysarov. Right after that
Dzhilavyan left for Yerevan.
Akhiyad Baysarov was arrested, but after 8 months of imprisonment they
released him after a written undertaking not to leave. The investigation was
stopped because of the absence of the victim.
Baysarov spent 10 years under the undertaking not to leave. In 2006, Mr.
Dzhilavyan appeared in Moscow where Mr. Baysarov accidentally met him. It
turned out that Dzhilavyan long had investigated his abduction on his own and
had found out that its organizer was his guard. At Baysarov’s request,
Dzhilavyan wrote about it to the investigation authorities. However, instead of
closing the file, they sent it to the court. Dzhilavyan went to all hearings
and tried to protect Baysarov. But it was all in vain, the sentence was as
cruel as it was absurd, which didn’t prevent the cassation instance from
confirming it.
Probably, it is the only case when the cassation complaint for the
defendant was written also by the victim.
Akhiyad Magomedzhovich Baysarov is an invalid of 2nd group, he has a
gastric ulcer and diabetes, some time ago he went through an infarct. He has
two underage children. All this wasn’t taken into account by the court.
Participants of the process keep filing complaints, but the positive outcome of
this strange case is still not foreseen.
Non-governmental organizations keep getting information that they send
bodies of those who died in prison to Chechnya. Relatives apply to law
enforcement authorities with investigation requests in such cases very rarely.
Imali Vikharzhiyevich Ayubov, born
However, on December 31, 2007, the court refused Ayubov’s release. The cause for this was that the relatives
couldn’t collect the necessary sum of money. On April 11,
It should be noticed that only an insignificant fraction of cases comes
in sight of the human rights defenders. As a rule, relatives attempt to resolve
the issue quietly using connections and money. The faith in justice and legal
mechanisms is almost lost, and not without a foundation. We often learn about
the events of the kind by indirection and don’t get permission from the victims
to speak up about the event, ask the press in and commission an attorney who
refuses to bring a bribe to the court. Therefore, when we are approached by
applicants who lost their hope in getting their relative released, it often
turns out that the case has gone so far that all terms have passed and there is
already no way to help.
The only hope for acquittal till recently was the possibility to get the
case considered by a jury trial where falsifications could be exposed in a
number of situations. However, on December 30,
The human rights community produced a distinctly negative evaluation of
such a change to the RF Criminal Execution Code. The law violates the legal
logic: before it came into effect, a jury trial could be chosen by those
charged with crimes subject to trial in courts no lower than the courts of the
RF federal subjects. Besides, fabrications on charges of criminal acts,
participation in an illegal military formation, and mass disorders are the most
widespread ones. Professional judges are afraid to bring in acquittals on such
charges.
Over the past years, the image of the Chechen who is dangerous, cruel
and hostile to Russia has become ingrained in mass
consciousness. Media outlets no longer need to shape this image of the
enemy. It is enough just to flesh it out, using the appropriate formulas and
expressions that have already become set – and no proof is needed. Material
gets the required emotional coloring and any fact can be presented as yet
another proof of the already existing myth.
Article by Grigory Geroyev titled “A new path of development for
Chechnya? We’ll go on short rations ourselves just
to feed the Chechens” posted on January 13, 2009, on the official
web-site of the Political News Agency (APN)[16]
is a typical example illustrating this. The author starts off citing quite commendable words from a New Year's Eve address by Ramzan Kadyrov to the
nation of Chechnya: “The most important
thing is to break those stereotypes that had been imposed over a number of
years… I’m asking the Almighty Allah to
never let war and bloodshed descend on our heads
and to make the new times for the Muslims of Russia a period of further revival
of spirituality, culture and traditions, for people without spiritual roots are
deprived of the past, and there can be no future without the past.”
Then Geroyev cites the words of the Chechen culture minister Dikalu
Muzakayev, who summing up the results of the past
year expressed confidence that Chechnya would soon reach “a qualitatively new level — the level of an
intellectual and cultural center of the entire North Caucasus.”
“Our republic possessed vast
museum collections, most of which have been irrevocably lost. …Young people
from that generation were deprived of the opportunity to fully inherit the
beautiful traditions and customs of their ancestors… homes and communications
can be restored, but to restore the spiritual heritage is a tremendous
challenge,” Muzakayev said.
The Minister speaks about the restoration of
cultural facilities damaged during the hostilities: a new Chechen
national library, the idea of establishing a department for the protection of material
culture sites, and the construction of a National Museum of Regional Studies in
Grozny.
One might expect that Geroyev’s
article would also deal with the revival of culture in Chechnya. But it’s nothing of the sort.
Geroyev switches to a completely different subject. He says that the
debate “which today has started in
Chechnya around the early release of Yury Budanov, former colonel of the
Russian Army and holder of the title Hero of Russia, in no way suggests that
Chechnya “has been breaking old stereotypes.” Geroyev rebukes Chechens for
being angry at the release of the murderer young Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva,
whose parents risked going to law.
For Geroyev, Budanov still holds the title of Hero of Russia, although
he was stripped of this title as long as seven years ago. Geroyev complains
that Chechens “do not give a slightest
thought to the fact that they themselves did things that in no way did them credit during the last two conflicts.
Among these things were terrorism and banditry fueled by Chechen separatism;
drug trade; abductions for ransom or subsequent use of the abducted as slaves;
barbaric traditions steeped in bizarre religious beliefs; finally, sadism.”
Putting aside the discussion of the Budanov case, as well as the grammar
and the language of the article, one can not fail to note how strange in itself
is the logic according to which it was written. In response to the call to
break stereotypes, the author immediately starts replicating them.
One might think, what relation museums
and libraries have to Budanov and separatism? Well, none, really, whatsoever.
The article contains no sensible reasoning. The author replicates a set
of associations: Chechens – slave owners – drug dealers – terrorists –
barbarians – savages – sadists. They slander our hero (even if this hero is a
murderer!) and, therefore, cannot be sincere in their desire for the revival of
cultural values in Chechnya.
To make the required impression on the mass reader Geroyev does not at
all need to show why and in what ways the projects of the Chechen Republic’s
culture ministry are harmful and why the idea of reviving “spirituality, culture and traditions” is bad. It is enough to
flesh out the myth – and in its context the article’s final conclusion becomes
acceptable: “by supporting the Chechen
national culture and reviving their traditions, Russia destroys its own culture
and traditions.”
The primitive and extremely poor article prompted a flurry of comments on the Internet. They came
mostly from young people. With rare exception, the remarks were full of
xenophobia and hatred towards Chechens and conviction that the Russian people
is humiliated and subdued. There were also some words of sympathy for Budanov,
but mostly he was seen with contempt. A
comment below presents a typical attitude in the
most concise way:
“I have no pity for this non-white trash, but Budanov is a lackey, why
doesn’t he shoot himself? He has really dishonored himself and looks now like those
black-assed pigs.” Rare retorts came from persons from the Caucasus, who
turned the tables on the majority of commenters. The few reasonable comments
are swamped in the oozy mire of hatred. No
one refers to the revival of the cultural heritage.
Studies of the formation of the “language of enmity” used by the media
repeatedly suggest the existence of the practice of making unprompted
references to ethnicity in media crime reports. “Natives of Chechnya detained
in Moscow when they tried to sell a forged bill…[17]”
“A Chechen hitman detained in the Czech Republic[18]…”
“The case, in which six Chechens are charged with launching an illegal
migration route across Belarus, sent to court”[19]
“A purely Chechen operation” (an article about the investigation of a contract
killing)[20]…
As Ye. O. Khabenskaya wrote in her study “Ethnic stereotypes and
xenophobia in the media”[21]:
“Journalists, building on
the fears and phobias existing in mass
consciousness, consciously or unconsciously give an ethnic dimension to
the crime situation… A significant portion of ethnoconflictogenic publications in the above media
deal with developments in the North Caucasus and problems of terrorism and help
demonize the image of the “Chechen” and the “man from the Caucasus”. Inaccurate use by journalists of a number of
religious terms (shahid, mujahid, warrior
of Allah, etc.) when referring to bandits and suicide bombers helps shape erroneous perceptions of Islam norms and,
accordingly, a negative image of the Muslim. We have found that the most conflictogenic articles on the subject of terror
have been published by the Argumenty i Fakty weekly, followed by the daily
newspapers Moskovsky Komsomolets and Moskovskaya Pravda. In a number of cases,
such publications can be seen in the context of the criminal and civil law as
inciting ethnic and interconfessional hostility (Article
282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).”
Chechens are described in such a way as to produce an a priori
assumption that they are guilty of a host of “deadly sins”; acts devoid of all plausibility are readily inscribed to them. Let us cite two examples, the
full details of which are available to us.
Let’s recall the story of Movsar Beksultanov that we have already
mentioned in this Report.
In 2004, Beksultanov was arrested in the town of Achkhoi-Martan. He was
charged with aiding Wahhabis. Under torture that continued for many hours he
confessed to the charges and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was
sent to Penal Colony 2 of the city of Voronezh to serve his sentence.
Two months before the end of his prison-term, Movsar was visited in his
cell by a man the young Chechen remembered all too well: it was the man who
interrogated him on several occasions during
On June 16, 2008, the day Movsar was released, he was stopped by police officers in plain clothes not far away
from the penal colony. He presented his certificate of release, after which he
was handcuffed, forced into a car with his prison
overalls pulled over his head and taken to the Central District police
department of the city of Voronezh.
His abductors gave ridiculous reasons for his detention: first they
claimed that a grenade was found in his bag, later, they told him that drugs
were discovered in a Koran that had been seized from Beksultanov and was for
some time held by the abductors.
Movsar was held at the Central district police department of the city of
Voronezh for two days without food and water. Because of the unbearable pain,
Movsar who suffers from gastric ulcer attempted suicide. A new criminal case
was opened against Movsar Beksultanov.
Field investigators’ plans to put him behind bars again were
unexpectedly disrupted by a judge of the
Central district of the city of Voronezh: she did not sanction Movsar
Beksultanov’s arrest, citing the lack of legal grounds for his detention.
Movsar was helped by the fact that human rights defenders, Voronezh-based
journalist Svetlana Tarasova and the Human Rights Ombudsman in Chechnya got
involved in his defense. Several months later, the case of drugs found in a
Koran was dropped because of the absence of corpus delicti. The story ended
with a relative success, although the persons guilty of trumping up the
evidence went unpunished.
However, in the article “Basayev’s
close henchman detained in Chechnya” published on NEWS.RU web-portal[22]
and cited by many other media outlets, including a web-site devoted to…
anti-drug efforts, this story looks completely different.
Of course, Beksultanov’s detention was presented as a heroic mission: “as a result of a carefully planned
operation, successful detention of militant Movsar Beksultanov was carried out.
The search of the house and grounds produced six shells used to produce
landmines, plastic explosives, an improvised
explosive device, a Shmel infantry rocket flame thrower, and a large inventory
of various items used in production of improvised explosive devices” (quote
from an Interfax news agency’s report).
According to the report’s author, there was a whole arsenal of weapons
held at Beksultanov’s home. Movsar’s father gave a completely different story
when asked to describe the “carefully planned operation”: “How they produced
evidence in that case is a story of its own. Police officers burst into our
home more than a dozen times. They turned everything upside down and beat
everyone who got in their way. They presented only one demand: make your son
confess to the fact that he is a Wahhabi…” Movsar himself was barely 21 at the
time.
Yet, running a weapons depot in a residential building is by no means
the limit of supernatural abilities of the young man. Leaving the penal colony
on the day of his release he, according to the information released by that
same Interfax[23] and
repeatedly republished in various media outlets (including, for instance, those
reporting on anti-drugs efforts), took with him…a large consignment of opium and several kilograms of
explosives. Once outside the prison, he, as a certain “interlocutor” was
reported as saying by Interfax Center information agency, not going far from
the colony’s gate immediately “tried to contact local criminals via drug
dealers, but was detained by field investigators of the regional Office for
Combating Organized Crime.”
VrnNews information agency gave its audience a different, even more
unnatural version of the events. In addition to the information about the
drugs, the report’s author, O. Orlova quotes the words of a certain “news
agency’s source in the regional law enforcement agencies”: “While in prison, he [Movsar Beksultanov] maintained contacts with
members of an armed gang of his brother, Timur Beksultanov. In addition, he
tried, together with other persons convicted for terror crimes, to launch a
secret group with features characteristic of Wahhabi Jamaats of extremist type
operating in the North Caucasus.”[24]
Yet, no matter how absurd is the version presented in the article, no rebuttals were made after the case was dropped. And the bizarre version of the events is still available on the Internet – where it was posted. The administration of the colony did not go to court to seek protection from slander – despite reports by the media that extremist groups are launched on its premises and drugs and explosives are taken out of it in huge quantities.
A reader who is not critically minded is ready to embrace such
perceptions of the Chechen and will not wonder why a person who is barely released
after three years in prison instead of seeking to meet his father and mother
(who came to Voronezh to take him home and were, by the way, immediately
detained by police officers without any grounds) would first try to establish
contacts with local criminals right near his penal colony’s gate. Nor are they
likely to ask why after all the law enforcement officers detained Movsar
Beksultanov without waiting for him to meet the buyer of the arsenal of weapons
and the kilos of drugs he took with him from the prison. Stereotypes do not
need any logic.
Even more consistently the image of the enemy has been shaped in the
case of Zara Murtazaliyeva. The fact that the girl is serving a sentence and
attempts to help her have not thus far been successful makes it all the more
easier to accomplish. Despite the fact that the investigators ultimately failed
to prove any guilt of Murtazaliyeva or her links to terrorists, the Moscow City
Court found Zara guilty of “preparing a terror act of bombing to intimidate the
public, disrupt public order and damage property” “involving other persons into
acts of terror” and “illegal acquisition,
possession and carrying of explosives” and sentenced her to nine years
in prison.
“Zara Murtazaliyeva, being
an active member of armed gangs fighting federal forces,
having undergone special training in a suicide
bomber training camp outside the city of Baku,
the Republic of Azerbaijan, in September 2003, arrived in Moscow to prepare
terror acts”,
reads her indictment, which was widely quoted by the media.
The mass media also alleged that Murtazaliyeva was involved in the first
military campaign in Chechnya (1994–1996), fighting on the side of the
militants. The girl’s mother presented to the investigators certificates
confirming that during that period her daughter was diligently attending
classes at a secondary school: in 1994, Zara was just eleven. The mysterious
camp outside Baku also proved to be an absurd fiction. It was not included even
in the investigators’ report, rife with far-fetched conclusions and
falsifications. Azerbaijan was surprised at the
story of a suicide bomber training facility most of all. “It is
extraordinary to hear that some suicide bomber
training camps exist in the territory of Azerbaijan. And it is even more
than strange to see such naked allegations being
released by Russian official bodies” (this statement by the First Secretary of
Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Russia Shamil Garayev was quoted in Anatoly Shvedov’s
article “The Nikulino Prosecutor’s Office
discovered a suicide bomber training camp
outside Baku”). The embassy filed an official protest with the Russian
Foreign Ministry, stating that no terror camp exists outside Baku and cannot
exist there even in theory, since the indicated location is the site of health resorts
well-known in Azerbaijan.
After Zara’s arrest, her friends Anya
and Dasha were repeatedly called in for
questioning and faced with requests that they “confess” to the fact that
Zara had tried to recruit them to become shahids. They tried to intimidate the
girls by saying that otherwise they would be turned from witnesses to
defendants. According to the lawyer, the first depositions, which the girls
gave in the absence of lawyers, were written as if they used a carbon copy and
their language was not the one used by girls aged 18. Anya Kulikova’s mother,
who turned for help to Svetlana Gannushkina, Chairwoman of Civic Assistance
Committee, has repeatedly said she does not want Anya to tell lies and betray
her friend.
Valentina Kulikova claimed that Zara had had only positive influence on
the girls. After meeting her, Dasha, for instance, quit drugs.
On June 18, 2004,
the national daily Izvestiya published an extensive interview journalist V.
Rechkalov carried out with Anya and Dasha. The article had an expressive title:
“How to become a shahid girl.” However, the words of Anya and Dasha as heard by
the journalist show more of an ordinary youthful enthusiasm than an impact of
any propaganda. “I generally have always been on the side of the weak,” said one
of the two girls explaining why she had said she “wanted to help wounded
Chechens…work as a medic.” And one can also sense the ardor of a neophyte: the
girls had just embraced Islam by the time of the interview. And it by no means
happened under Zara’s influence: they even met for the first time when the
girls were already going to a mosque.
Yet, the reader gets a very different picture from
the materials that were published in the press…
Although the girls’ answers to the journalist’s questions contained no
confessions of immediate plans to become terrorists, the skillfully clipped
parts of this article were for a long time republished by various publications,
often without references to the original text. These were published under
different titles, including “I once asked how one could become a shahid”, “Girls in
Moscow embrace Islam and are willing to go to Chechnya to fight Russians”, etc. Moskovsky
Komsomolets daily on December 23, 2005 carried a short
report “Sisters in jihad” signed by Lina Panchenko and Svetlana Meteleva, a
notorious agent provocateur who more than once infiltrated certain ethnic
groups not only to subsequently write an article full of lies, but also to
appear later in court as a witness for the
prosecution against her recent “friends”.
The article contained a blatant lie: “Murtazaliyeva
tried to put psychological pressure on her
Russian female friends, demanding that they serve her.” FederalPost information
agency also followed suit. Its report “A Chechen female terrorist trained Moscow girls
to become suicide bombers” (May 20, 2004) gave a whole version
that linked together the charges of terrorism
and recruitment of shahid women pressed against Zara. The very titles themselves cause anxiety and enmity in the
reader, making them feel hostile. Citations torn
from the context like the ones quoted above make one feel scared.
This is a dramatic and unfortunately very frequent
manifestation of the “language of enmity”, often used by the media when
describing people from Chechnya. Inaccurate advertisements and subtitles are a
separate problem. Being elements of advertising, rather than journalism, they
play a specific role: to attract and retain viewers or readers. However, often
one or two inaccurate but catchy phrases are remembered longer than the rest of
the report.
Of course, the case of Zara Murtazaliyeva also got
another, different kind of coverage as well. Articles by Zoya Svetova,
Aleksandr Bourtin, and Alik Akhundov give a very different picture, the one
which is much more detailed and closer to reality. Neither the newspapers, nor
the news portals that published them – Polit.Ru, Kommersant, Russky Courier, Novyye
Izvestiya, and others – can in any way be called
gutter media or have small readerships. Those willing can easily learn about
how material evidence disappeared during the investigation, about the pressure
on witnesses, and about the letter from Azerbaijan’s embassy, after which the
story of a terrorist camp outside Baku was shattered to pieces… They can even
learn that one of the witnesses, Anya Kulikova, withdrew the testimonies she
gave during the investigation. However, the truthful information sinks in the
sea of lies, which are not left behind in the past: invalid and biased
information about Zara’s case continues to spread.
Three years passed (the trial of Zara took place in
January 2005) and on October 10, 2008, YOKI.RU information portal posted
another article with a telling title: “Human rights defenders stand up for a
terrorist woman.” The timing of its publication was not accidental: precisely
on October 7,
The author, Sergey Makarov, again repeats the
entire set of charges which have already been repeatedly refuted in the press,
presenting them as reasonably reliable facts: “Having arrived in Moscow in
“How can she, a
person who got training in one of the suicide
bomber training camps and who was ready to sacrifice her life for Allah,
repent the cause of her life?” Once again, we hear about a
suicide bomber training camp. Once again,
we hear about a cunning recruiter feeding ordinary Russian girls stories about
“how great it is to be
a shahid girl, living a completely
different life – all you have to do is ‘go to Baku, there’s a camp there’.”
And, finally, the conclusion: “Plastic explosives are not sold in Russian stores,
and the recruitment of future suicide bombers that the envoy from hell carried out for several years speaks only of deliberate
actions and the desire to kill, which can hardly be obliterated by ordinary
pangs of conscience.” The article fails to say though why, in Sergey
Makarov’s view, “the desire to kill”
is more effectively obliterated by imprisonment
without the possibility of early release on parole, rather than by “pangs of conscience”. But then the
mythological pattern was presented without any
reticence. An “Envoy from Hell” is a weird description for a girl who
was arrested at the age of 23 and sentenced to 8.5 years in prison. Hardly
anything can be surprising now, given the fact that journalists from the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily wrote as
early as in 2005 that Zara was “that very
Black Fatima who was behind the bombing
in Tushino[25].”
Of course, it was not the author of this ridiculous report on YOKI.RU
who decided that Murtazaliyeva’s bid for early
release on parole should be turned down, despite a letter the court
received from the Chechen ombudsman, who expressed his willingness to give
Murtazaliyeva a job in his office in Grozny, and the fact that the Chechen
Government filed an application in support of her
early release, which is a rare occasion. The decision was taken by the
court. But the fact that the story of an “envoy
from hell” “ready to sacrifice her
life for Allah” and recruiting Moscow girls to send them to a “suicide bomber
training camp outside Baku”
continues to spread is entirely on his conscience. And it is still to be seen
whose lives will be affected by the image of the enemy crawling around the
country’s capital with plastic explosives in her handbag and three kilos of
drugs concealed in a Koran.
It is virtually impossible to get apologies from authors for inaccurate
statements or false accusations when the matter involves Chechens. As we have
already mentioned, even the publishing of clear and unambiguous evidence
showing that the information about “terrorists” and “slave owners” is invalid
does not guarantee that the journalist who used it will publicly go back on
their words.
But once the honour and dignity of those tormenting prisoner Zubayr Zubayrayev[26]
were hurt, the response came immediately.
As
it has been already noticed above, on March 26, 2009, the Kirov District Court
of the city of Volgograd considered the claim of the local LIU
(medical correctional facility) administration against Ms. Yelena
Maglevannaya on defending its "business reputation". The head of the
facility accused Yelena of slander and forgery of evidence: without denying the
fact that Zubayrayev showed signs of serious injuries, the administration
argued that they were a result of self-inflicted harm. Moreover, according to
the response received from the administration, “Z. I. Zubayrayev received
necessary medical care in every instance of self-aggression.”
Further hearings were postponed until mid-May, since the defendant
requested to obtain photo and video materials made slightly over a year ago by
the commission at the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman in Volgograd. Only
non-resident witnesses were examined. There were three of them: Zubayr’s
current lawyer, Musa Khadisov, who was invited by Memorial Human Rights Center,
and two human rights defenders from Grozny, Roza Shamiyeva and Madina
Astamirova, who work at the Human Rights Center at the Office of the Human
Rights Ombudsman in Chechnya.
Musa Khadisov visited Zubayr precisely one day before the court hearing;
he gave a detailed description of the signs of torture he saw on his client’s
body: feet nailed through, a screw driven into his knee joint, and wounds on
his head and legs.
Roza and Madina, on their part, gave the court some very interesting
details of the biography of Mr. V. D. Deripasko, the current acting head of
LIU-15: he served in Chechnya during the second war; during his tenure at the
Chernokozovo investigation ward dogs were set on people with his participation.
In penal colony at the village of Frolovo, Volgograd Oblast where Zubayr had
served his sentence before he was transferred to LIU-15, the colony administration
head showed him a knife and said: “I used this very knife to kill Chechens, and
I will cut your head off; the lucky outcome for you would simply be shot by a
firing squad.” The above facts are also presented in Zubayr’s written
statements, entered into the case files and read out by his lawyer in the court
hearing.
The facility’s representatives could not come up with a comment and only
the head of the surgery department S.B. Karavayev asked each of the witnesses
in turn, “Did Zubayr tell you that any of the facility’s doctors had used
physical force against him?” It’s a surprise to hear such a question from a
doctor: physical force does not seem to be on the list of methods of providing
medical care to patients.
However, the above evidence did not make the judge sympathize with the
tormented prisoner. The court intends to consider adding owners of all
websites, which published Yelena Maglevannaya’s articles as codefendants in the
facility’s suit.
As for Mr. S.B. Karavayev, his attitudes towards Chechens are
unambiguous and clearly presented in his LiveJournal blog. This is what he
wrote about the Budanov case: “It is
clear that for Chechens and all Chechen-lovers the best outcome would be to see
Budanov’s heart fail and have him die in prison, while under investigation and
carrying a stigma of a criminal in the eyes of “public opinion”. This must be
prevented by all means: get the best doctors, buy the best medicines, perform
every medical operation needed, but make sure the colonel stays alive and is released
under amnesty. Released to make sure that anyone who would ever think of going
to war against
Is it surprising then that Zubayr Zubayrayev has been having hard times
in the hands of “friends” like these?
As it has been mentioned above, on May 14, the
court ruled that Ms. Yelena Maglevannaya was guilty and sentenced her to the
exorbitant fine of 200 thousand rubles.
A common way to project negative ethnic stereotypes is to make
rhetorical generalizations about the features of the “national” character or
“cultural” features of the way of life and behavior of Chechens. Stereotypes
become deeply ingrained in mass consciousness, and even the most prominent and
active members of civil society cannot escape them.
In the end, we would like to cite an excerpt from the article “We will
get more freedom and strength if we leave the Caucasus” authored by the
Chairman of the Perm Civic Chamber and editor-in-chief of the newspaper
Lichnoye Delo Igor Averkiyev[27],
published on January 27, 2009.
Arguing the case for the need for the Caucasus to separate from Russia,
or, more exactly, for Russia to separate from the Caucasus, Averkiyev explains
it by the incompatibility of cultures.
According to Averkiyev, who hardly ever visited Chechnya himself, “Kadyrov’s regime is the choice of the
Chechens, no matter what political conspiracy
theorists might think on this matter and no matter how obvious the
Kremlin’s involvement in the formation of this regime might seem. Kadyrov’s
regime is a regime built by the Chechen people itself and its recognized
leaders, with its full consent, and based on its traditions, customs, and
political culture. But these traditions, customs, and political culture are
alien to Russia. This is neither bad, nor good – this is a fact. We simply belong
to different civilizations. Apparently it is so trivial that it is not taken
into account.”
Below are the features of those “Chechen and Russian civilizations”
according to Averkiyev:
“Everything that happens
today in Chechnya does not in any way fit into the notions of standard and
normalcy generally held in Russia. The list of these “Chechen abnormalities”...
includes treating the woman as an inferior being, which is a thing of the
distant past in Russia; religiosity which is excessive and fanatical for the
Russian taste; power worship that is immoderate even by Russian standards;
totalitarian nature of clan relationships; and many other things.
Hostage taking in Chechnya
is almost a trade; using slave labor of prisoners is a normal household practice, killings of women for
“misbehavior” can be justified by tradition. The “public price” of a human life
is very different with them and us: There can be no “soldiers’ mothers” in
Chechnya; there can be no shahids in Russia.
It is possible and sometimes advisable for a person in Chechnya to die in the
name of ideals; in Russia it is not advisable since long ago and already almost
impossible. After the end of a war, Chechen men do not suffer any kinds of
post-Vietnam or post-Afghan syndromes: personal involvement in killing enemies
of their people for many of them is still one of the advisable and prestigious
forms of self-fulfillment, not a mental disaster, like is the case for the
majority of residents of the East European Plain or Siberian lowlands and highlands.
When during the last war
Chechen warriors had to kill Russian prisoners of war, they killed them like
they would slaughter cattle: by cutting the throat from ear to ear. It was not
because they were particularly cruel, but because they treat persons of a
different faith and of foreign race who were taken prisoner as non-humans, as
cattle, and treat them like cattle. The Russian soldier can not do it; his
xenophobia is not so consistent. Despite the careless disrespect for other
person’s life and fits of embittered cruelty, it’s always a human being that he
kills, no matter how brutal and hostile they are. Hence, all those “post-war
syndromes.”
There is no hatred towards
Chechens among normal residents of “small-town Russia.” There are attitudes of
mistrust and suspicion, and the desire to insulate oneself, to have nothing to
do with them. Many have fear. However, average Russians do not wish average
Chechens death, destruction and “disappearance from the face of the Earth.”
"Leave us alone and don’t have any business with us”, that’s all they
need.”
What an amazing lenience towards the Russian soldier, who kills in a fit
of embittered cruelty out of careless disrespect for other person’s life! And
how readily all Chechen “abnormalities” are attributed to the entire people,
and only those citizens of Russia are recognized as “normal” who are devoid of
hatred and suffer the pangs of conscience!
How absurd is this call to the Chechens: Leave us alone – that’s all we need!
This article was vigorously debated in the human rights community.
However, we have to admit that it caused the feelings of rejection almost
exclusively among those who had seen both Chechen wars with their own eyes,
worked long and hard in Chechnya and had strong professional links and warm
personal relationships with Chechen colleagues.
Averkiyev writes vividly; his articles are filled with confidence and
power and, therefore, are appealing to many readers. His key idea – Russia
should leave the mountainous part of the Caucasus – undermines the imperial
approach towards the future of Russia we all are concerned about.
The trouble is that in his article he writes about things he does not
know at all, having got the information about Chechens from smart journalists
who created a stereotype that bears little resemblance to reality.
Below is the comment presented by Mr. Oleg Orlov, the Chairman of
Memorial Human Rights Center, during a discussion held by the People’s Assembly
Club of public organizations:
“How did it happen that a
person claiming leadership in a regional non-governmental organizations
community and seen as a serious developer of human
rights techniques insulted an entire people in his article in an offhand
manner and based on racist stereotypes? Is it not the shaping of the image of
the evil hostile “ALIEN” identified on ethnic grounds?
What if we say that there
were many more Chechens brutally killed in Russian captivity than there were
Russian prisoners killed and present the materials available to us which show
how dead bodies of militants taken prisoner are dumped out of transport
vehicles: they did not have their throats cut – they just died of wounds in
those vehicles or suffocated? Averkiyev’s article contains a ready answer to
this: look at the murderers “here”– they all suffer from all kinds of
syndromes, while this is not at all the case with the murderers “there”;
“there” killing is nothing.
And if we cite the fact that
a landfill with dead bodies, which had their throats cut, was discovered
outside the Russian military base in Khankala – “our guys did the cutting” - it
would still prove nothing to Averkiyev.
Our colleagues from the
Caucasus attended seminars and workshops organized by Averkiyev. They read with
interest his studies into the problems of organizing the activity of a
non-governmental organization. And now they are going to read this insulting
work. What did they do to deserve an insult from a person they saw as their
colleague?
Averkiyev knows very little
about the subject he writes about. As a result, he writes things that are not
just insulting, but, which is worse, wrong and insulting.
Most of his assertions about
Chechen society, habits, etc. have no connection to reality. Kadyrov’s regime
could in no way emerge based on Chechen traditions, customs, and political
culture – it was formed only through their destruction, a dreadful mutation as
a result of mass violence.
What has struck me in this
article was not the fact that somebody poured on the reader yet another bucket
of stereotypes steeped in xenophobia and myths based on the lack of knowledge
of the subject. I find it unacceptable that this was written by someone from
our community.”
There’s no sense in challenging Averkiyev’s statements. He cannot fail
to know how many people defend former colonel Budanov, who was convicted in one
of the two cases in which military officers got some real imprisonment
sentences for crimes against civilians in Chechnya. No post-Chechnya complexes
are observed in them.
However, the stereotype has been shaped and is not subject to any appeal.
According
to the Federal Migration Service Office for the Chechen Republic, as of January
1, 2007, 57,349 internally displaced persons (IDPs) had been registered under
Form 7 (registration form for a family that arrived because of emergency). By
the end of the year, they all had been struck off the register which guaranteed
them at least a minimum food assistance and the right to live in temporary accommodation
points (TAPs).
By
the beginning of 2009, there had been just 3,400 families (8,500 persons) of
IDPs left who were found to be in need of accommodation. However, the problems
of internally displaced persons are still urgent.
The
state has thus far failed to develop and pass additional legal instruments
providing for specific legal safeguards to IDPs and detailing the
responsibilities of state bodies and officials towards them, as well as
mechanisms and procedures designed to give them the opportunity to get fully
reintegrated.
It
is clear that the problem of getting accommodation remains among the most
pressing ones for IDPs.
Support to TAP inhabitants in settling down
The
administration has been working to close down TAPs, following the instructions
of the President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov, since May 2006. The
Chechen authorities built their case for closing down TAPs around the
“degrading influence on the Chechen culture” of the refugee community.
Memorial Human Rights Center has regularly reported in its reports and
news releases on the previous campaigns to “shut down”, but not solve the
problems related to the provision of support to IDPs in the Chechen Republic.
Decree of the Government of the Chechen Republic No. 181-r of April 21, 2006
established a Commission for the Enforcement of Standards and Rules of Tenancy
in TAPs located in the territory of the Chechen Republic. As part of the above
commission’s activities, IDPs have been struck off the registers for Form 7.
A political decision was taken to remove the problem of IDPs from the
radar of the Russian and the world public, since it was a vivid sign of the
continuing disaster, which did not in any way fit into the picture of the
revival of the Chechen Republic.
In pursuance of the
Decree of the Government of the Chechen Republic No.387-r of October 17, 2007,
TAPs were abolished and the burden of providing help to forced migrants in
settling down was passed entirely to the Chechen authorities. The buildings and
premises of temporary accommodation points got status of family hostels and the
responsibility for their maintenance was transferred to the Government of the
Chechen Republic. FMS (Federal Migration Service) of Russia ceased to be
responsible for the supervision of the implementation of programs of housing
and resettlement support for IDPs; management of hostels was transferred to the
respective district administrations of the Chechen Republic.
One
might guess that the Federal Government also supported this decision, since it
was relieved of the burden to maintain the TAP system and assist the people
supported by it.
In
October 2007, the Joint Working Group for the Legal Protection of IDPs Rights,
including representatives of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) in the North Caucasus, the Human Rights Ombudsman,
governmental bodies, and non-governmental organizations sent recommendations to
the President of the Chechen Republic, which were developed based on the
findings of a study into the problem of IDPs. They included a request to allow
IDPs who had uninhabitable housing or no own housing at all to spend the coming
winter on the premises of TAPs that were converted into hostels. According to
the UNHCR, the number of such citizens was no less than 10,000. The letter also
drew attention to the fact that the main role in addressing the issue of
resettlement and helping TAP inhabitants to settle down was assigned by the
government to municipal and district administrations. However, for too many
local administrations this was a burden they could not bear; this task was
particularly challenging for rural ones, which did not have adequate resources
and opportunities to help the returning citizens to settle down. Despite the
above factors, the vigorous efforts to resettle hostel residents were launched
and pursued during the winter period.
Starting
from December 2007, the Chechen authorities intensified the large-scale process
of shutting down hostels that previously had TAP status and moving their inhabitants,
internally displaced persons, to the areas where they had lived before.
The
review of numerous complaints and applications, as well as findings of on-site
monitoring suggested that in the process of disbanding temporary accommodation
points the rights of their inhabitants were grossly violated. “Voluntary”
applications by IDPs to get struck off the registers for Form 7 were mostly
completed under crude pressure.
People
who were moved out into the unknown were handed out 18,000 rubles to rent housing
for six months and a letter of guarantee signed by the head of the commission
for resettlement of forced migrants Bakharchiyev, confirming the fact that the
specified category of citizens is entitled to priority in getting housing. At
the same time, the letters of guarantee did not specify the period within which
the individuals evicted from former TAP were to be provided with housing.
The
question of where one can rent housing in the areas of previous residence if
the housing stock has not been restored there yet was left unanswered. Besides,
it is impossible to rent housing for a family for 3,000 rubles per month.
On December 13, 2007, residents of the
hostel at 11, Ponyatkova Street, Grozny, filed a statement with Memorial
Human Rights Center, complaining against the attempts to unlawfully move them
to the areas of permanent residence.
Representatives of the authorities requested that those who lived there
leave the premises, claiming that they had been allocated for establishing a
cancer detection center.
Repair and maintenance works to establish a cancer detection center were
immediately launched on the premises of the former TAP, which made the already
difficult living conditions even more difficult. From time to time gas and
electricity were cut off. This was made to force people to move out. One should
take into account the fact that among the inhabitants of the temporary housing
they tried to disband there were lots of persons with health issues (including
tuberculosis and cancer patients), and a high number of infants and babies; the
majority of residents belonged to the most vulnerable groups of the population.
Those persons were evicted. Some families from among those that lived in
that building were eventually moved to other hostels located in the city of
Grozny; however, the majority was left virtually without shelter and forced to
solve their housing problems themselves.
More than ten families were moved into the hostel at Vyborgskaya Street.
However, to live there they had to pay their rent. These rules are also in
force now in other former TAP converted into hostels. The rent is between 500
and 900 rubles per month per room. Many people cannot afford even that amount
of money, since only the most vulnerable citizens of Chechnya, who cannot find
jobs, remain in these “temporary homes”. There are disabled persons in almost
every family.
Zura Dadyeva is
daughter-in-law in Khava Shamsadova’s family and the wife of her son Albert.
Khava’s three daughters live together with them. They were not given an
apartment and had nowhere to go. They rented a small house for 5,000 rubles per
month.
Azaman Dbirmagalayeva, who
has two children, aged 16 and
Zulpa Aliyevna Makhtiyeva,
together with her husband and five children, received a letter of guarantee for
2,000 rubles. The family stayed for the night in a shed at her friends’ at the
village of Michurina; their belongings were piled up in the yard.
Deshi Askhabova (born 1947),
together with her son, daughter-in-law and a child, did not receive any
compensation. Their house had been destroyed and a one-room apartment was given
to the entire family. She cannot live with her son-in-law at her daughter’s
place, since this goes against the tradition.
Inhabitants of the former TAP decided to turn to the President of the
Republic via the media to tell him about their problems. They were sure that he
was unaware of their situation, but as soon as he learned about it he would
defend them against the heartless bureaucrat.
The response of the Zavodskoy District Prosecutor’s Office which came to
the inquiry by Memorial Human Rights Center about violations of the rights of
IDPs living in the former TAP at the address: 4, Vyborgskaya Street, Grozny,
said that in pursuance of the Decree of the
Government of the Chechen Republic No.242-rp of August 2, 2008 the building was
only temporarily placed under the operational management of Migration Service
for the Chechen Republic. It meant that the prosecutor’s office recognized as
lawful the return of the TAP building to the management of the Zavodskoy
District administration for consequent establishment of a hostel and,
accordingly, the requirement to pay rent for accommodation.
On December 23, 2007, rooms were vacated for those who were moved into
the hostel at Okruzhnaya Street, with previous tenants evicted.
The Chechen leadership suggested that heads of district and rural
administrations invite those who were permanently registered in their
territories and allocate them land plots at their places of permanent
residence. According to some reports, administration head of the Vvedeno District Dunayev was beaten up
by deputy head of the municipal administration because he objected to this.
Residents were told that until they complete construction of their own houses
they would have to live in a rented apartment, for which the local
administration would pay 2,000 rubles per month (it is unclear what regulation
specifies this). Letters of guarantee were issued to very few persons and
though they were completed on forms, the signature of administration head was
lacking. People could not find apartments for rent, while housing and
administrative authorities did nothing to help them in that. Some persons,
particularly those permanently registered in rural areas, were not offered
anything at all.
There
were reports of people moved out of hostel rooms by force, with their
belongings thrown out, and sometimes scuffles ensued. Many persons, especially
women, had to put their signatures on the applications prepared in advance by
local administration officials to avoid conflicts between their men and armed
people. In this way the authorities managed to significantly reduce the number
IDPs for whom they were responsible. Some of the IDPs who held out against
arbitrariness have been simply struck off the registers by completing
certificates of the above-mentioned Commission. It should be noted that the
decree of the Chechen Government to establish the Commission does not detail
either its powers, or the way its decisions are to be documented, or the
guidelines it should follow when inspecting TAPs. Therefore, its actions were
in conflict with the provisions of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation,
which allow eviction of citizens from residential housing only in a judicial
procedure. And even a letter of guarantee is not a safeguard against ending up
on the street.
For instance, Lem-Ali Saytakhanov had lived since
On
January 10, 2008, residents of the hostel
at Vyborgskaya Street (Chernorechye settlement, the Zavodskoy District of
Grozny) were informed that renovation works were to be started shortly in the
building and, therefore, they had to leave it within ten days. Those who were
permanently registered in the Zavodskoy District but had not received
compensation were promised money to pay for a rented apartment for six months
by representatives of the local administration. To receive it, they had to
write statements that they pledged to leave their hostel as soon as they got
18,000 rubles to pay for rented housing. People protested this proposal: it was
an extremely cold winter and, according to the rules, inhabitants could not be
evicted from the rooms they occupied before April 15, i.e. the end of the
so-called “heating season”. Besides, it was not easy to find housing, since in
Chernorechye settlement buildings have not been renovated yet. The hostel
residents were extremely angered at the situation. It is virtually impossible
to rent an apartment for 3,000 rubles per month, since the actual price for a
rented apartment is at least 1.5 to 2 times higher. Besides, it was unclear
where they would get money to pay the rent after the six months period expired.
However, officials were adamant, saying there were following Ramzan Kadyrov’s
orders.
Based on an application by residents of the
hostel converted from the former TAP located in the city of Grozny at
the address: Mayakovskogo settlement, the Staropromyslovsky District, Memorial
Human Rights Center sent to the Staropromyslovsky District Prosecutor’s Office
an inquiry about unlawful actions by local administration officials:
“…On January 15, 2008,
deputy administration head of the Staropromyslovsky District of Grozny A.
Bersanov announced to the TAP residents that he got orders to have the hostel
vacated. Those who would voluntarily vacate their rooms were promised payment
in the amount of 18,000 rubles to pay a six-month rent. At the same time, the
hostel’s superintendent M. Idigova read out the order to vacate rooms before
January 20,
Many TAP residents find this
“rent” option unacceptable, since this would mean only a stop-gap solution to
their housing problem.
The internally displaced
persons fear they could be moved out by force in case of their refusal to obey.
In view of the above, I’m
asking you to give a legal opinion of the actions of the superintendent of the
said hostel and the representatives of the administration of the
Staropromyslovsky District of Grozny and in the presence of grounds take
response measures to protect the housing rights of the citizens living in the
above hostel.”
The Staropromyslovsky District Prosecutor’s Office notified Memorial
Human Rights Center that the actions of the administration officials might
reveal elements of crime under Article 330 of the Criminal Code of the Russian
Federation (arbitrariness), which according to the code of criminal procedure
were to be investigated by an investigator from Interior Ministry bodies. On
March 11, 2008, an investigator with the Investigations Department of the Staropromyslovsky
District Police Office issued order to dismiss the
criminal complaint. On March 18, 2008, the prosecutor’s office notified
that that order had been revoked and the files were sent for additional
examination. It should be mentioned that while Interior Ministry bodies were
reacting, breaking the procedural time limits for processing of complaint, the
TAP residents were evicted, with each family given 18,000 rubles to pay the
rent.
After
all the disbanding, shutting down and conversions of TAPs into hostels, all
kinds of reshuffling of their inhabitants from one district to another it is
difficult to say now how many hostels are left and how many residents they
house.
All IDPs are tired of roaming from one place to another, losing jobs,
interfering with their children’s studies at schools they have attended for
long periods of time. They insist on getting a permanent place of residence,
not a temporary home.
Restoration of the housing
stock and its occupation
The
Chechen authorities have been taking certain steps to help IDPs to settle down.
IDPs receive apartments from municipal housing stocks. In the town of
Argun, the Chechen Government allocated 100 apartments. In addition, heads of
five district administrations in the city of Grozny pledged to allocate 100 apartments each from their
respective housing stocks.
At the same time, it is clear that the housing that is being restored
and allocated is not enough to satisfy the needs of all homeless citizens of
the Chechen Republic who need homes. Flows of people move into the reception
offices of public organizations on a daily basis, asking for help at least with
getting temporary accommodation.
There are families, which need particular care and attention, since they
belong to vulnerable groups. Their insecure situation affects them even more
than others. However, their problems do not get adequate attention.
In July 2008, Memorial Human
Rights Center was approached by two elderly residents of Grozny, Viktoriya
Grigoriyevna Kuradzhan and Alla Yakovlevna Kharlamova, born 1927 and 1939
respectively.
Viktoriya Kuradzhan holds
the titles of war and labor veteran. In 1943, as a sixteen-year-old girl, she
went to work at a secret defense plant producing cannons and only after the
Victory Day she was assigned to the Lenin Plant, where she worked until
retirement. In the latter days of her life, she virtually found herself left on
the street: her family moved out of the Chechen Republic and left behind the
elderly woman with health issues; the house at Parafinova Street where she had
lived for almost all her life was destroyed in the hostilities, and she did not
get any compensation.
Alla Kharlamova was born and
grew up in Grozny, all her life she worked at the Grozny Chemical Plant. One of
her two bothers died; the other one had left the Chechen Republic long ago. She
retired before the first Chechen war and her pension is 2,000 rubles. Alla
Kharlamova has no family.
They both live in a building
at the address: 14, Industrialnya Street, in a semi-destroyed and half-burnt
room. Before moving into the ruins on Industrialnya Street, they both had lived
in that same basement they used to hide in during the hostilities. Then the
Zavodskoy District administration officials provided them with housing,
explaining that it was not good to live in a basement and they could stay in
the housing until they were given more adequate living conditions. However,
even that shelter would not last long. Repair works will soon be started in the
building (of which there are only two sections left), and it was suggested that
the elderly women urgently vacate their current shelter. Two options that are
proposed include moving into a hostel (Memorial Human Rights Center staff
visited it and can attest that the condition of the building that houses the
hostel is as unsafe as that of the room they live in now) or moving into a home
for elderly people, the prospect that scares the women both because of the loss
of any independence and difficult living conditions. Both women are still
capable of tending to themselves and, therefore, would like to live
independently.
In their attempts to help
Viktoriya Kuradzhan and Alla Kharlamova, Memorial Human Rights Center staff
turned to the Grozny City Administration, the Zavodskoy District
administration, and the Social Protection Ministry. An article about them,
written by Natalia Estemirova, appeared in the local newspaper Groznensky
Rabochy.
However, the options offered
by bureaucrats of all levels stay the same: a home for the elderly or hostels.
One of the hostels that was offered (at Vyborgskaya Street), according to the
administration officials themselves, has no vacant rooms, since it is occupied
by former inhabitants of TAPs who are not residents of the city of Grozny;
inhabitants of the other hostel are already under the threat of eviction: they
have been also asked to vacate the rooms they occupy.
Zura Eskayeva is an elderly
woman and an invalid of 2nd group. She is virtually alone: her only daughter
lives in Kamchatka. Currently, Zura has to live in another person’s apartment,
since she has lost her home.
Since 1981, Zura Eskayeva
had worked as a house painter at Repairs and Construction Office 1 of the city
of Grozny. For her twenty two years of hard work, in 1983 she was given an
apartment in Grozny.
On November 10, 1994, the
apartment was privatized and was owned by Eskayeva as private property, as
confirmed by the registration certificate she was issued.
During the hostilities of
1994-1995, her house was partially destroyed; however, later it was restored.
The house was again damaged during the second military campaign. During that
period Zura, like many other city residents lived in a basement. After
government institutions were restored in Chechnya, the building residents hoped
for the restoration of their housing. In this regard, they turned to officials
at every level, but received conflicting answers: one time they would hear that
their house was scheduled for restoration, another time they would hear that
apartment owners were entitled to compensations (for lost housing).
As early as on September 9,
2003, Zura filled an application with a commission for compensation payments;
however she was never notified of its decision. Meanwhile, her son-in-law, who
also owned an apartment in that same building, got his compensation claim
turned down on the grounds that the house would be restored. While officials
could not make up their mind about what to do with the building, the latter was
taken to pieces for construction materials by neighbors. Zura tried to prevent
this looting, but to no avail. The historical building, which was built in
1913, was destroyed.
Zura wrote a letter to the
Chechen Government. As early as 2006, she also filed a statement with Memorial
Human Rights Center, the staff of which wrote numerous complaints to various
officials attempting to help her; however, the complaints produced no results.
Another big problem is that some families, which have grown over the
years of roaming, can no longer live together. In peaceful times, they would
have built or bought housing for young families starting to live separately;
but for many years they were deprived of this opportunity. Now they have to be
content with the miserable amount of compensation for an entire big family or
restore a home where they can no longer live in together.
Left without assistance are the families that had rented housing or
lived in a hostel, waiting for their turn to receive apartments from their
employers. Now it appears that the state has no obligations to them. During the
hostilities, the situation of these categories of IDPs was in no way different
from that of the others. Now they are virtually evicted into the street. Since
local district authorities are not responsible for them because they don’t have
permanent residence registration anywhere, this responsibility should be picked
up by the Federal Government, namely the RF Federal Migration Service, as a
body tasked with addressing the problems of IDPs. However, we do not see it
happening.
There
are lots of examples when the same apartment is claimed by several families.
Sometimes there are three or more of them: the old dwellers, the new ones, and
those who paid a bribe to move in. The latter are ready to defend their right,
quite literally, with weapons in their hands; people do not dare to move in to
such apartments for fear of their lives.
For instance, the family of
Yelena Alekseyevna Islamova was first given an apartment in the Leninsky
District of Grozny (18, Diakova Street, apt. 57). Sometime later, it emerged
that the apartment had other legitimate owner. The owners of the apartment who
returned home came daily demanding her to vacate their housing. The
administration admitted the fact that those people were owners of the apartment
and asked them to wait for ten days to let them find a different apartment for
Islamova. They had to wait for three months. Finally, Islamova was given
another apartment in the same district (6, Kosiora Street, apt. 48). On March
27, Yelena Islamova informed Memorial Human Rights Center that the new
apartment, too, was owned by other people. Thus, Yelena Islamova’s housing
problem was not solved; instead, a problem appeared for legitimate owners of
the apartment as well.
In June
2008, Uveis Tovsultanov was granted housing in the city of Grozny
at the address 6, Pervomaiskaya Street, the Leninsky District. It turned out that it belonged to another
family. The owners of the apartment
demanded that he vacate it. The owner
could prove his rights, since he had all the necessary documents. The apartment
was not an abandoned one and Tovsultanov’s
family had only a permit to move in, signed by Muslim Khuchiyev. Uveis
was granted another apartment, to which he had to move before March 24, 2008
(that was the third apartment in a row provided to him).
The
apartment needed renovation and was uninhabitable.
On
April 3, 2008, the Leninsky District administration decided to move Tovsultanov to a hostel, since an interdepartmental commission refused to
grant him an apartment. The reason for this unjustified refusal was that he had
permanent registration in the house that had been restored but never owned by
him and he had never lived there. In reality, Uveis and his mother lived at
land plot
Bad condition of the allocated housing and its
quite relative habitability is a separate problem.
The Staropromyslovsky
District administration initially gave
Ruslanbek Musayev’s family an apartment in the house that had been in unsafe
condition since 1988. Several days later, they together with other dwellers
were moved out. The second apartment provided to them also proved to be
uninhabitable, unless a major renovation was performed. It had a leaking roof
and was half-destroyed. Currently, the Staropromyslovsky District
administration pays for the housing rented
by the Musayev’s family.
The construction of some of the buildings opened today was started back
in the Soviet times. It turns out that there are citizens who have documents
for that housing issued to them back then. When IDPs try to move in conflict
situations abound.
Those who receive apartments from the so-called “abandoned housing
stock” are also faced with a similar problem. Despite the fact that they have
the necessary documents on hand, they often have to go through a long court
process to defend their right to the housing. And the other party in the
process is the property owner who bought it from Russian residents fleeing
Grozny during the early 1990s. It makes no sense to try to pin the blame on
anybody in such situations. Apartments were sold for a song – just so that to
get enough money to pay travel expenses, without proper documentation;
therefore, many of the apartment owners who left Grozny considered themselves
entitled to compensation under the Regulation of the RF Government No. 510 of
April 30, 1997 for the apartments they had sold. The apartments for which such
compensation was granted are included into the state housing stock, the
so-called “abandoned housing stock”. According to official data, there are more
than 5,800 apartments registered in the abandoned housing stock.
Thus, as a result of rushed settlement of the problem of resettling
hostel residents, another group of victims has emerged – property owners
evicted from the housing they have purchased without proper documentation. They
are angry at the authorities for giving preference to residents of hostels and jeopardizing rights of
those who have settled down during the war using their own resources. The
massive seizure of “abandoned” apartments creates an acute conflict situation
around the resettlement of hostel dwellers and leads to an increase in social
tensions.
Memorial Human Rights Center
office in Grozny was approached by dwellers of Building 24 at Tchaikovskogo
Street, the Oktyabrsky District of Grozny, who had unsuccessfully tried to move
into their apartments for many years. The Grozny Clothes Production Association
built this 5-storeyed building on the said street back in 1985 for its
employees. During the 1990s, many dwellers privatized their apartments and have
documents of title on hand.
The hostilities made the
house dwellers move into safer places and the house was partially destroyed. In
2003, the restored building was rented for five years by the Federal Migration
Service for the Chechen Republic to house a TAP, and IDPs who returned from
Ingushetia moved into it. At the same time, the city administration assured the
actual owners that after IDPs were resettled they could occupy their
apartments. In February 2008, the TAP was closed; the last remaining IDPS,
despite cold winter conditions, were forced into the street and given 20,000
rubles. The building was completely renovated.
In March 2008, the
In March 2008, Memorial
Human Rights Center office in Grozny was approached by dwellers of Building 14
at Tukhachevskogo Street (the Leninsky District of the city of Grozny). They
believe that their house has been unlawfully destroyed. The building consisted
of six sections. During the hostilities, the biggest damage was done to the
third section, where all 20 apartments were destroyed. Several apartments were
also damaged in the first and the second sections. The building’s foundation
was not damaged at all. In April 2007, it was suggested that dwellers leave the
house to let construction workers perform repair works. The dwellers did not
want to move out, since many of them had nowhere to go and no temporary housing
was provided to them, despite the requirement of the law. The Leninsky District
administration officials called in a police squad and evicted them by force. In
November 2007, the building was fenced off and renovation works started.
However, on February 28, 2008, the decision was taken to demolish the building.
The dwellers were explained that they could not complete the renovation by the
deadline of May 2008, and, therefore, the building had to be demolished. The
dwellers’ question about where to live was answered: go anywhere you want. The
house was demolished in a matter of days; the foundation pit was filled; the
fence was removed; and there were no traces left of Building 14. Most
apartments in the destroyed sections were privately owned by the dwellers and
some were rented. Currently almost all dwellers of Building 14 have to pay for
rented accommodation.
Thus, in practice, with all the rapid restoration of housing and revival
of Chechnya, thousands of people there still live without a home and without
hope to get one in the foreseeable future. This problem will not be solved
unless the Federal Government gets involved in the efforts to provide housing
to residents of the Chechen Republic.
Meeting with President of
the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov and its implications
On February 22,
The
verification inspection was started immediately on that night. It identified
two incidents that called for an immediate intervention of the authorities to
correct the situation.
The first incident was related to the family (six
members) of Nazo Gaurgashvili, which was returned from Georgia in November 2006
after they were assured that housing would be provided to them within 12
months. In January 2008, Nazo’s family had to move out of the former TAP,
taking the 18,000 rent rubles: they were told that otherwise they would be
evicted by force. They failed to rent an apartment and stayed with their
friends, near the school attended by Nazo’s two children.
Nazo Gaurgashvili was immediately promised that her
family would get an apartment.
On February 26, the apartment was granted. Mayor’s
Office official took Nazo by car to the location and showed her the apartment;
however, they did not enter it and did not give Gaurgashvili’s family any
documents. When Nazo tried to inspect the apartment, neighbors told her that
the apartment has an owner. She immediately went to the Mayor’s Office official
who had shown her that apartment and informed him about the situation. To that
she was told she had to defend her apartment, since there was no such thing as
“vacant” apartments. Later, it was explained to her at the Housing Office that
a personal account already existed for “her” apartment. The Mayor’s Office
countered that the personal account had been opened illegally, and she could be
issued her documents. Then the Housing Office again stated that the apartment
already had an owner. This uncertain situation had not been resolved as of
April 2009.
The second incident was related to Zulpa Makhtiyeva’s
family. This family was moved out of a TAP without money for rent, after
incorrect information about the availability of housing had come from the area
of their origin. They settled in Grozny, in a small makeshift shelter, the
owners of which have asked them to vacate it: they have major construction
going on in the yard and need this room for construction workers. When
inspecting the site, Mayor Muslim Khuchiyev agreed that it was not suitable for
living; however, he decided to check their housing in the village of Dachu-Borzoi.
Later, human rights defenders were told that the house had been restored and
promised to be shown a video recording with it. In turn, Memorial Human Rights
Center staff made photos of the tiny room on the site of the house and
explained that the Makhtiyevs had constructed it themselves. However, the
living conditions and the floor space make it impossible for the family to live
in this single room that they have restored. This was acknowledged by the
Oktyabrsky District administration, on which territory the Makhtiyevs found
themselves, but no serious action was taken. At the same time, the
administration head of the village of Dachu-Borzoi, who was supposed to take
care of the family, trying to justify himself, called them cheats.
During that same meeting, the question was raised of resettling
inhabitants of a settlement in Grozny called Shanghai, which had been built
without authorization by persons who had no housing. The President was given a
letter, in which a settlement’s resident complained against the authorities
shutting it down, throwing its inhabitants out into the street. Later in the
day, the Mayor of Grozny together with representatives of Memorial Human Rights
Center visited the Shanghai settlement and talked to its inhabitants.
It was ascertained that the Grozny City Administration gave inhabitants
of this settlement 16 apartments and 26 land plots (residents themselves could
decide what to take), as well as construction materials. However, those new
apartments already had their legitimate owners and no documents were issued for
land plots. The Mayor of Grozny firmly said that he wouldn’t tolerate this
situation.
Staff of Memorial Human Rights Center has monitored the situation around
the settlement for a year.
Fifteen families were allocated
land plots. However, there were protracted delays in getting documents for land
use.
Eight families were given
apartments, three of which proved to be the “problematic” ones, i.e. there were
other individuals claiming the apartment in question or a legitimate owner who
hadn’t forfeited their rights to it. Other recipients of apartments expressed
concerns that they might face similar problems with allocated housing in the
future, especially after the buildings with those apartments were restored.
In February 2009, Shanghai
was razed to the ground. Several families were resettled into a hostel
converted from a former TAP at Okruzhnaya Street, which no longer has running
water and heating.
Roza Khamzayeva occupies a
room there. Her husband and adult son do not live with her, but stay at their
friends’. They registered in the apartment “granted” to them to be able to get
a passport, take a job, and get medical treatment. The apartment they were
given belongs to another family, which lives there.
Petimat Gadzhayeva, invalid
of 2nd group, living in Okruzhnaya Street with her daughter who is a widow and
a grand-daughter is in the same situation. The apartment, at which they are
officially registered, is occupied by other people.
Ali Tsagayev lives in a bus;
he has no other place to live, although he has received a plot for
construction. His wife and three sons live with different relatives. His family
was not put on the list of those 14 families, which were supplied with
prefabricated panel houses by the UNHCR for the period of construction of their
own homes.
It was only in April 2009
that they started to issue documents for land plots.
Finishing our account of the meeting with Ramzan Kadyrov, we cannot fail
to mention that the President of Chechnya put Ms. Natalia Estemirova, a member
of Memorial Human Rights Center, on the Grozny Municipal Public Council for the
Promotion of Human and Civil Rights and Freedoms and appointed her its
chairwoman during the meeting.
A meeting of this Public Council chaired by Natalia Estemirova took
place on March
On March 31, the Mayor of Grozny Muslim Khuchiyev suddenly asked Natalia
Estemirova to immediately arrive at the Youth Palace of the City of Grozny
where the President of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov visited at the time.
While there, the Mayor of Grozny first briefly discussed the future activities
of the municipal Public Council with the Memorial representative. However, the
President of the Chechen Republic abruptly changed the subject and the tone of
conversation, when he entered the room. He started to harshly criticize Natalia
Estemirova. The main reason for his attack was Natalia Estemirova’s views she
stated in the program “The Islamic Evolution” aired on March 30 on REN-TV
channel. The Memorial member had spoken against the interference of the state
into the private life of citizens and condemned the attempts to impose
mandatory wearing of headscarfs by women in public places in the Chechen
Republic by administrative regulations.
The President of the Chechen Republic did not confine himself only to
this criticism. He said that Memorial Human Rights Center was spreading
unsupported information, which tarnished the image of the leadership of the
Republic and claimed that he did not see any positive results of the efforts of
human rights organizations. Finally, he said that he dismissed Natalia
Estemirova from the post of chairperson of the Grozny Municipal Public Council
for the Promotion of Human and Civil Rights and Freedoms. Moreover, he demanded
that Memorial Human Rights Center send a person to sit on this Council who
would agree with the policy of the Chechen authorities concerning wearing of
headscarfs by women and strongly recommended that Natalia Estemirova cease to
visit ministries and departments controlled by the President of the Chechen
Republic.
Memorial Human Rights Center refused to send its representative to sit
on the Grozny Municipal Public Council for the Promotion of Human and Civil
Rights and Freedoms in place of Natalia Estemirova. The views and judgments she
had voiced on REN-TV channel are consistent with the position of Memorial Human
Rights Center.
Ingushetia: campaign to
squeeze refugees out to Chechnya continues
The campaign to squeeze Chechen IDPs out of Ingushetia was launched in December 1999, during
the hostilities. These efforts intermittently receded and intensified with
renewed vigor, like it was the case in November-December 2002, when Murat
Zyazikov became the President of Ingushetia. Public organizations have
continuously followed the process and their efforts to counter it sometimes
were successful. Since the beginning of 2009, attempts have been made to force
the last remaining 10,000 IDPs to leave Ingushetia. Particular pressure is exerted
on inhabitants of compact accommodation points (CAPs), which still house
approximately 3,000 IDPs.
On February 27, 2009, IDPs from Chechnya
living in Mekhstroi refugee camp (9, Michurina Street, stanitsa of Ordzhonikidzevskya) applied to a
Memorial Human Rights Center office with a
statement.
In particular, the statement reads: “We
live under such inhuman conditions not out of boredom. Of course, we would like
to live in our homeland, in normal conditions. We want to have our own place,
our own home. But no one offers us anything of the kind. We don't want to be
taken off the migration agencies’ books and go into
the unknown, without having any guarantees. Do we not deserve some moral
compensation or a solution to our housing problem after all these long years of
roaming?
In
general, nobody takes our rights into account here.”
According to the information available to Memorial Human Rights Center, almost all of the forced migrants from the Chechen
Republic living in the territory of Ingushetia have faced this kind of problem.
A similar declaration by refugees from the
Kristall camp located in the city of Nazran was posted on the web-site of the
Maximum news agency.
On March 4, IDPs from the Chechen Republic
living in Angusht refugee camp (35, Mutaliyeva
Street, Nazran) applied to the Memorial Human Rights Center office
in Nazran with a written statement.
They said that at the end of February 2009
members of a special commission from Chechnya comprised of representatives of
district administrations and officials of the migration service of the Chechen
Republic had visited their camp several times.
They suggested to IDPs to get removed from the books
of migration agencies (Form 7) and
return to Chechnya. The commission was accompanied by officials of the migration
service of the Republic of Ingushetia who said that all forced migrants from
Chechnya would be taken off the records before March 15.
The Chechen refugees were angered by that kind
of treatment. The main reason why they don't return home is that they have
nowhere to live. They don't have any financial means to rent a place. The
children of migrants go to Ingush schools, and this is another problem that
Chechen refugees would face: getting their children enrolled in new schools in
the middle of a school year.
“We, citizens of the Russian
Federation who don't have our own accommodation and whose rights have been
violated for a long time in the roughest form, will again be denied our rights,
but this time already on another level. We are forced to live in privately
owned property. We want to have our own homes, but no one offers us anything of
the kind. And we don't want to be taken off the migration agencies’ books
without any guarantees.”
On
April 6, 2009, IDPs from the Chechen Republic
living in Mekhstroi CAP (9, Michurina
Street, stanitsa of Ordzhonikidzevskya)
turned to a Memorial Human Rights Center office and Civic Assistance
Committee with a written statement.
In
their statement, they complained that they had been illegally deleted from the
database of the Federal Migration Service sfor the Republic of Ingushetia
(struck off the register for Form 7). According to the IDPs, starting from
February 2009, their CAP was regularly visited by representatives of the
migration services of the Republic of Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic, who
requested that they get struck off the register for Form
Many
IDPs do not have their own housing in Chechnya and they have nowhere to return;
therefore they refused to sign applications to get them struck off the
registers. However, on April 2, Mr. A. Archakov, the owner of Mekhstroi, showed
to IDPs certificates confirming that they had been struck off the register for
Form 7 and warned them that they had either to move out within two days or pay the
rent in the amount of 1,000 rubles per room.
On
April 3, forced migrants came to the RF Federal Migration Service for the
Republic of Ingushetia to meet with Mr. M. Ilezov, acting head of service, and
ask for explanation of the grounds, on which those certificates were completed.
M. Ilezov called into his office V. Khasimikov, a migration service officer
from the Chechen Republic assigned to the office in the Republic of Ingushetia.
At M. Ilezov’s request, V. Khasimikov brought all personal records of IDPs from
Mekhstroi and showed them applications dated March 31, 2009, submitted in their
name and showing that they voluntarily had been struck off the register for
Form 7.
All
applications were completed in the same handwriting and signatures were forged.
Inhabitants of Mekhstroi CAP claim none of them signed any applications. They
demanded that these applications be handed over to them. V. Khasimikov promised
to do it on April 4, but later refused to do so, giving the excuse that their
applications had been sent to Chechnya. Ruslan Badalov, head of the public
organization Chechen Committee for National Salvation was present at the
meeting between IDPs and Ilezov. He recorded the conversation of the migrants
with the migration service officials and made photos of the forged applications
using the camera of his mobile.
IDPs
were also greatly surprised by the fact that in March 2009 officers of the
Federal Migration Service for the Republic of Ingushetia produced 17
certificates confirming that 17 forced migrants (together with members of their
families) did not reside in Mekhstroi CAP, which is also untrue. On the day
when the Federal Migration Service officers carried out their inspection all
inhabitants of Mekhstroi specified in the certificates were present there.
In
their statement the Chechen IDPs ask human rights defenders to help them in
protecting their rights that were violated when they were illegally struck off
the register for Form 7. They also ask protection against the targeted efforts
to forcefully squeeze them out of places of temporary residence.
On
April 3, IDPs from Mekhstroi CAP filed a collective complaint with the
Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Ingushetia to make inquiries into the
forgery of documents.
On
April 6, Memorial Human Rights Center lawyers helped the migrants to prepare a
complaint to be filed with Sunzha District Court against the unlawful actions
by the department of FMS of the Russian Federation for the Republic of
Ingushetia.
Based
on a letter from the inhabitants of Mekhstroi, an inquiry was sent to the
leadership of the Republic of Ingushetia.
Following
the letter of Mekhstroy inhabitants, Civic Assistance Committee made an inquiry
to the administration of the Republic of Ingushetua.
The
reply was only received in mid-May. It was signed by the Minister on public
relations and interethnic ties (signature without printed name). Although the
answer from Ingushetia was prepared in a soft hortatory key, it ensued from the
text that Ingush authorities were no longer ready to give asylum to Chechen
internally displaced persons. The Minister refers to the fact that the
Anti-Terrorist Operation is over, and the Chechen authorities are ready and
willing to receive their inhabitants and give housing to them. We are explained
that now it’s spring, the best time to return, as it’s time to work in the
garden and renovate housing. According to Ingush authorities, the inhabitants
of Mekhstroy are "no longer
registered on the basis of the acts examining living conditions at places of
their permanent residence in the territory of the Chechen Republic, prepared by
representatives of administrations of towns and districts of the Chechen
Republic on the suitability of their housing for living." Besides, as
is remarked in the reply of the Minister, the inhabitants of Chechnya have
lived in Ingushetia for so long that "they
have integrated into the economy of the Republic, trading in the markets and
doing business. … they have become accustomed to their situation, it is their
habit to be dependents of the state and burden authorities with their private
problems."
It
is described above how ready the Chechen Republic is to provide everybody who
needs housing with it. However, it should also be reminded that authorities of
Ingushetia always assured the IDPs that nobody would force them to return. Now
the authorities of Ingushetia virtually acknowledged that the IDPs didn’t
express their own wish to return to the Chechen Republic voluntarily.
It
is not clear also why doing business is equaled to dependency.
The situation of Chechens in Russia outside the territory of the Chechen
Republic was described in each of our preceding reports. In the last year and a
half it didn’t have any positive changes.
It can be seen from the information conveyed in the previous chapter
that xenophobia towards Chechens became rooted in the minds of the Russian
public.
It is still as difficult for Chechens to rent an apartment or find a
job. Many visitors of Civic Assistance Committee confess that when renting
housing they hide their ethnicity. They are afraid to ask housing owners to
provide them with registration, much as there are now no problems with it
compared to a few years ago. A Russian citizen can stay for 90 days without
registration at the place of sojourn in a federal subject different from the
one of his residence.
However, at that, such persons cannot get a job, they cannot obtain
full-fledged medical service and social protection. In order not to reveal
their ethnicity, our applicants often have to acquire fake registration in
housing different from the one that they rent. At that, there always remains
the risk of exposure, sack, and deprivaiton of social benefits and medical aid.
Let’s mention a number of cases of discrimination and persecution that
the Chechens are subject to in various regions and in different situations.
Before any important event, the law enforcement authorities conduct
special preventive actions on the “neutralization” of places where there reside
Chechens and sometimes other persons of Caucasus origin.
Mr. Musa Muradov, a correspondent of the Vlast magazine so describes
such a pre-election action, which his family was subjected to not long before
the elections to the State Duma in December 2007[28]:
“A
few days before the elections a police officer called my apartment on the
entrance door intercom. Surprised by the visit without a cause, my wife asked
our neighbors if any of them had called the police for some reason. No, they
hadn’t had. And the police officer himself repeated,
‘I
am here for you, not for them, open up!’
‘Why
us? We haven’t called you either.’
‘In
connection with the elections, we draw up a record of residents of certain
apartments, – the police officer said.’
‘You
mean the apartments were persons from the North Caucasus live?’ – guessed my
wife.
‘Yes,
exactly so, open up now,’ - the police officer demanded strictly.
‘You
see, my husband is not at home, I’m afraid. Perhaps you could come another
time?’ – suggested my wife, remembering my instruction not to open the door to
persons she didn’t know, whoever they introduced themselves as.
However,
the concierge already opened the door, and the police officer walked up the
stairs and again insisted on my wife’s opening the apartment door. My wife
opened the door.
The
police officer introduced himself as the precinct officer and asked to produce
passports of my wife and 18 year old daughter as well as the birth certificate
of our 3 year old son, who looked with interest at the first, but I think not
the last police officer in his life.
Upon
having rewritten documents data into his notebook, the precinct officer
proceeded to interrogation. He asked whether there were guests in the apartment
and whether anybody of our relatives or acquaintances was going to visit us in
the nearest future, ‘If anybody comes, don’t forget to let us know at once.’
When
leaving, he asked my wife whether I had left my passport at home, but figured
that he asked a stupid question (who in Moscow among those from Caucasus would
leave home without a passport?), and asked me to stop by the station.
I
did stop by the station, interested in seeing how the police would justify
their actions. I found the very police officer that visited my place at the
main police station at 32, Petrozavodskaya Street. As soon as I named my
surname and address, the police officer who introduced himself as Konstantin
Vasilyevich asked me to produce my passport.
‘Why?’
– I asked.
‘We
investigate you.’
‘What
does it mean that you investigate me? What have I done?’
‘You
have done nothing, give me the passport, we will get your data on the record,
and you will be free to go.’
‘And
why do you investigate me, if I haven’t done anything?’ – I was indeed
interested to hear what he would say.
‘We
investigate you in connection to the upcoming elections.’
‘And
what are you going to do to investigate me?’
‘We
will be tracking your guests. For nothing illegal to happen, you have to inform
us about your guests, I have clearly explained it to your wife!’
‘My
five year old niece is going to visit me, will I have to inform you about that
as well?’
‘Five
year old?’ – Konstantin Vasilyevich pondered. ‘I guess that is not necessary,
but if somebody older comes, do inform me, it is obligatory!’
‘Do
you think that I and my guests can threaten the elections?’
‘It
is not my thinking, the higher-ups instructed us to put on the record all of
the apartments where Chechens and other persons from North Caucasus live.’
Musa Muradov recollects that they asked him to
fill out a special questionnaire for Chechens when he was getting a temporary
registration at rented housing three years ago. The questionnaire consisted of
five pages and contained, among others, the following questions:
Which
mosque do you attend and how many times a week?
Which
teip do you belong to?
Where
do your relatives reside and what do they do, also including the relatives of
your wife?
I had to describe all scars on my body with the
indication of time and circumstances, under which they appeared.
They asked me to draw up a list of
acquaintances living in Moscow with their addresses and telephones.
“I
even asked the police officer whether I’d have to list all of them, as there
were hundreds. The police officer answered they needed them all. I remember
that I started my list with Sergey Yasterzhembsky and Vladimir Putin, although
without providing a cellular number, as it is known that he doesn’t use it,” Muradov says.
According to Musa Muradov, he, a well-known
reporter, used his professional skills and called a few high-ranking police
officers. They all denied the existence of the special Chechen questionnaire.
And they lied, since the lower ranks honestly sent in a sample of such a
questionnaire to Civic Assistance Committee as a proof to our Chechen officer
not having been subject to any personal measures of pressure.
“Precinct
police officers didn’t get any special instructions on representatives of any
specific ethnicities, it all is unauthorized activities. The police have the
objective to use all means to ensure safety at the polls. But we don’t have any
special suspicions against Chechens, please rest assured,” he was told at this time.
Musa Muradov decided not to participate in the
elections. Apparently, after the measures taken towards protecting the state
against his family he stopped feeling himself a citizen of the Russian
Federation.
Construction workers from Goyskoye village of the Chechen Republic
called Civic Assistance Committee from the small town of Solnechnogorsk in
summer 2008. Some fifteen Chechens worked on the construction of a
twelve-storey house. This kind of work was very popular among Chechens in the
Soviet time, with seasonal Chechen construction brigades scattered all around
the Soviet Union. Whole villages and towns were built with their hands.
Most of Solnechnogorsk construction workers were professionals, and two
were former police officers. They didn’t have anything to do with illegal armed
formations. Moreover that, almost all of them were well acquainted with the
attorney Dokka Itslayev, the head of Memorial Human Rights Center office in
Urus-Martan who lives in Goyskoye.
As it usually happens, the construction workers lived in small temporary
houses near the site of construction and were happy that they could find a job,
which they couldn’t do in the labor-abundant Chechnya.
However, according to the words of those who called, the workers became
a subject of constant and intent attention of Solnechnogorsk police. As soon as
some of them risk going to the store located next to the site, the vigilant
police detain them. Instead of the store they find themselves in the district
police office where they are told that “all Chechens are terrorists, they won’t
let them work in Solnechnogorsk, and if they don’t go to Chechnya while the
going is good, they will be put to prison as a case will turn up.”
Illegal foreigners work at the site, but they are only fleeced by the
police, while the Chechens are constantly threatened with criminal prosecution.
On the day when the workers called Ms. Svetlana Gannushkina, the Chairwoman of
the Civic Assistance Committee, a few of them were detained without any grounds
and spent two days in detention. Ms. Gannushkina called an officer on duty in
the Moscow Oblast who made an inquiry and informed her that the police officers
intend to get a sanction of the court for administrative arrest of the Chechens
for their lack of registration. The allowed term of detention of 48 hours
elapsed on Sunday. The judge on duty wasn’t available, so after long wrangling
about whether the absence of judge is enough reason for prolonging the term of
citizen’s detention in violation of the Article 22, Part 2 of the RF
Constitution, the police officers had to set the detainees free.
The freed construction workers called Ms. Gannushkina to thank her. They
asked her, “How come, illegal foreigners
work at the site, and we are getting kicked out? Are we citizens of Russia or
not?” This question remains unanswered.
In his yearly report, Mr. Boris Ponosov, an officer of the Perm office
of the Migration Rights Network of Memorial Human Rights Center informs about
the cleansing after the Chechen pattern at the Bolshaya Sosnova village that
was carried out by police special task force in summer 2007.
This village hosted a compact settlement of seasonal workers from the
Chechen Republic. On July 31 at
Right after the action was over, Kerimov brothers who permanently reside
in Bolshaya Sosnova and are leaders among the Chechens informed Mr. Boris
Ponosov about the night events. In the evening he personally spoke with a
number of victims and drew up four applications to the court to claim moral
damage in connection with inflicted traumas and offences. These applications
were filed with the court.
Unfortunately, not a single of the cases was considered by the court as
the Perm Chechen diaspora intervened and persuaded the workers that no further
legal action be taken. The Chechens approached the Perm Krai prosecutor’s
office and the main police office of the Krai. They met Mr. Gorlov, the head of
the police. Ponosov learnt from Kerimovs that they managed to settle the events
and no mass applications to the court are favored. The four applications
already made were later revoked.
Soon unknown persons called Mr. Boris Ponosov and told him that the
special police task force undertook raids looking for Chechens also in the
wholesale depots in the area of Zaostrovka district. During the raid they let
go all illegal foreign workers with questionable documents, while Chechens
stood against the wall for a few hours as in Bolshaya Sosnova.
Mr. Vasayev, a pensioner and past head of Bolshaya Sosnovka’s police
office who consults Kerimovs on legal issues, also became a victim of the raid.
He stood together with the Chechens against the wall for three hours for his
refusal to report about the Chechen residences in the village. Such a treatment
of the old colleague proves it again that the police didn’t have any
information or suspicions discrediting the Chechens, they simply undertook an
action of intimidation.
After the action of the police special task force, many Chechens went to
the local hospital where traces of beating were recorded. However, all further
steps of Boris Ponosov were fettered by the directions of the Chechen diaspora
leaders who decided not to take legal action.
The cited case is typical, much as is the reaction to it. We obtain a
lot of information about similar cases, but they only have consequences, if a
criminal case is brought in. Otherwise the victims prefer to settle everything
with the police and to hush up the incident.
When looking for a job, Chechens face serious difficulties and often
insults. On February 13, 2009, Ms. Fatima Sultanovna Madayeva, born 1966,
approached Civic Assistance Committee. More precisely, the day before reception
Fatima called Ms. Gannushkina, the Chairwoman of the Committee, on the cellular
telephone. The handset first relayed only crying and then a female voice said,
“For what? I cannot live like that, I don’t want it! Why may they insult me in
such a fashion? What specifically have we done to the people that everybody may
humiliate us like that?” One should know the usual restraint of the Chechens to
understand the condition of this woman. After quieting down a little, Fatima
explained that she was walking down the road and crying: she just had been
insulted in an atelier where she had wanted to become a seamstress.
The next day Fatima Madayeva told her story at the office of Civic
Assistance Committee. She came to her acquaintances with two daughters. Her
daughters, 19 and 22 years old, study by correspondence at the Chechen State
University. The older Bella is a student of psychological faculty, and the
younger Madina is a student of law. Fatima is divorced, so nobody will be able
to protect her daughters in Chechnya if somebody wants to force them into a
marriage. Three young women wanted to find a job. Besides, the girls wanted to
study foreign languages, Madina already began to study Japanese.
Looking for a job, Fatima called all enterprises that announced
opportunities in her specialty. There were a lot of opportunities. Fatima
called ateliers and clothing factories, asking if they still needed a
seamstress and getting a positive answer. Then she told them that she was a
Chechen and obtained a negative answer in a rude or apologetic form.
Finaly, the atelier TOT-2, JSC she was told that it was irrelevant.
Inspired, Fatima went to apply in person. However, they met her in an
unfriendly manner and some boss or engineer (the lady didn’t present herself)
asked her about her nationality and expressed doubt in a Chechen’s ability to
be a seamstress. In reply to the innocuous question of what they knew about the
Chechens, Fatima was said, “I know that the Chechens are gangsters, thieves,
murderers and rapists.”
The reaction of Fatima to this announcement seemed too acute to the boss. She said, “Here you have revealed yourself, we have Tajiks and Kirghizs working here, but they don’t show their pride. You have yet to prove that you are also human.” Ms. Fatima Madayeva decided not to prove that she was a human. She couldn’t find a job. Civic Assistance Committee send a request to Ms. Valentina Vladimirovna Bryzhalova, TOT-2, JSC director, asking to perform educational work in her organization. The letter came back, despite the address of the atelier and the name of its director being published at a number of advertising web-sites.
Ms. Fatima Madayeva made a number of other attempts of finding a job,
but still couldn’t find anything. A month of selfless efforts adversarially
affected her health, and she fell gravely ill.
In the introduction to our
report, we have already mentioned the scrupulous attention, which the security
service officers paid to the participants of seminars for teachers of mountain
areas of the Chechen Republic.
There were no problems
connected to the visit of Chechen teachers to the first seminar in Moscow area that
took place in October 2008 during autumn vacation. The seminar took place at
the Training Center of the town of Moskovsky where they are accustomed to
hosting all sort of groups: this is where congresses of political parties, all
sorts of societies and movements are hosted. For a long time, seminars for
lawyers of the Migration Rights Network took place there twice a year, to which
officers of the Network came from throughout Russia. In October 2002, exactly
during the time of the terrorist act in Dubrovka, we were holding a seminar for
attorneys from Chechnya in the Training Center, as after a long break the
judicial system was being restored in Chechnya. Despite the common state of
stupor and horror, nobody came to the Center to offend the Chechen attorneys
with their suspicions.
The second seminar for teachers took place on March 21-29,
In the very first day of the
seminar, police officers stopped a few teachers to check their documents, asked
them where they were from and why they came to Puschino. The participants told
them that they came to a seminar and lived in the town’s hotel. After a while,
criminal police came to the hotel and asked to be given copies of all passports
of those who came from Chechnya. Having discussed the situation, organizers of
the seminars decided to make the copies and pass them to the police. But this
wasn’t the end of it all. Police officers would come to the hotel almost daily,
explaining that they were acting under a secret order in an “Antiterror”
operation and that they had the right to perform fingerprinting and
photographing of all participants.
Despite not finding any
criminal intentions in the Chechen teachers, on April 1 their participation in
the Puschino Winter School was discussed at a session of the town
administration. Mr. M. A. Roytberg, the head of the school, learnt that in
accordance with the rules effective in the Moscow Oblast he had to inform the
town authorities and law enforcement about the visit of teachers from Chechnya
and provide their lists. Thus, there was acknowledged the existence of some
secret order regarding the Chechen, which Mr. Roytberg had to guess. Unfortunately,
many figures in authority and common citizens indeed “guess” the existence of
such orders and try not to have business with those coming from Caucasus. At
the same time, particularly receptive individuals enter into the spirit of such
orders and sincerely consider communication with their fellow citizens from
Caucasus dangerous.
During the summer vacation
we are planning the third concluding seminar for teachers from mountain
villages of
The last example characterizing the situation of Chechens in Russia has
to do with their treatment at the border of Russia. In August 2008, Memorial
Human Rights Center conducted a seminar on working with people who went through
a stress for its officers from the hot spots. At the same time, the seminar was
supposed to exert a rehabilitative influence of our colleagues tired after long
years of hard life and work. The seminar took place on the seashore in Turkey.
All officers coming from Chechnya were detained at the border control in
Vnukovo airport, and their passports were put aside without any explanation. In
a while everybody except the ethnic Chechens and Ingushs got their passports
back and was let through for embarkation. Questions of the colleagues who
weren’t let through were answered with rudeness. Ms. Gannushkina, the head of
the seminar, had to find the person in charge of the brigade working on
passport control and give written explanations about objectives of the travel,
the topic of the seminar, and the charter of the Memorial. Ms. Gannushkina
passed a list of seminar participants to the border guards and indicated the
date of return of the group in a written explanation, asking to deliver the
colleagues for the repetition of this procedure upon the return.
Immediately before the flight, Ms. Gannushkina dictated an inquiry to
the Federal Security Service, a part of which the border guards are, to her
secretary remaining in Moscow, asking about the basis, on which the group
underwent the check in such a strange and insulting manner.
On the way back, everything repeated, but in a more rude and insulting
form, the conversation with the chief of the brigade was even harsher and
included threats to bring in a criminal case about our colleagues who dared to
call this discrimination.
Right upon the arrival we sent a second inquiry to the
Federal Security Service. Both inquires had identical replies, the essence of
which was that the control was handled in strict observance of parts 6-10 of
the RF Government resolution No. 50 “On the order of application of means and
methods of control when letting individuals, vehicles, cargo and animals across
the state border.”
Ms. Svetlana Gannushkina studied the resolution mentioned in the replies
and made sure that during the detention of her Chechen colleagues at the
border, which took more than an hour, a few parts of this document were
violated. According to part 8 of the Resolution, all actions of the border
service should be motivated and explaned to citizens. Besides, a selective
check, if this could at all be called a check, on the ethnic grounds
contradicts to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms.
A third request about this followed (Appendix 9), to which there came no
reply.
Our seventh report is dedicated solely to the situation of Chechnya
residents. In the previous sixth report the topic was broader. We noticed that
the overall situation in the North Caucasus wasn’t encouraging. In the past
year and a half it didn’t change for the better.
The North Caucasus becomes more and more heterogeneous, and the
situation in each of its republics remains unstable and dangerous for different
groups of residents. Ingushetia, where armed fighting stopped for a while after
a change of president, is again as unstable as it used to be.
The situation in Dagestan needs special attention, as it is quite
possible that the influx of refugees from there will increase. The bodies of
the interior of this republic turned into a source of constant threat to the
population, about which they constantly petition non-governmental
organizations. Local campaigners are under severe pressure. Relations between
ethnicities reach high degree of tension, particularly where Chechen compact
settlements exist.
Up
to now, the Ossetian-Ingush conflict didn’t find its final resolution, and the
situation in the Prigorodny district of the North Ossetia remains tense despite
efforts of the federal authorities and financial investments. The situation
becomes even more grave also because there remain more than 24 thousand forced
migrants from internal regions of
The analysis of situation in each of the enumerated republics as well as
the information from monitoring the situation in the Chechen Republic can be
found in other reports of Memorial Human Rights Center and in reports of our
colleagues from other non-governmental organizations.
On
August 3,
There
is every reason to believe that his abduction was a revenge for the fact that
unlike many others he had not been afraid to openly demand that illegal acts
against him be investigated.
The
man was already abducted once in Chechnya in 2006 and held prisoner in an
illegal prison. On September 29, 2006, unidentified armed people detained M. D.
Masayev, M. A. Deniyev, and V. A. Sigauri at a mosque in Gudermes. After that
the three men disappeared. Their relatives were unable to get any information
on what happened to them next. However, three months later, Deniyev and Sigauri
were released by the kidnappers, and another month later, Masayev was released
as well.
Unlike
most other people with a similar experience, Salikh Masayev sought to have the
kidnappers who had illegally deprived him of freedom for four months brought to
justice and punished. Masayev claimed that officials of the Chechen Interior
Ministry had held him in a secret prison, located on the premises of a unit of
the Ministry of Interior of the Chechen Republic.
In
late 2007 and early 2008, Masayev appealed to Russian and international human
rights organizations, including the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International,
and Memorial asking to provide lawyers to him. On March 18, 2008, Masayev was
found to be a victim in criminal case No. 55096, filed by the prosecutor’s
office on his illegal imprisonment and deprivation of freedom.
In
an interview with the Novaya Gazeta
newspaper, given on July 10,
He
was abducted once again on August 3, 2008. At the present time the fate of
Salikh Masayev is unknown.
According
to his brother, Oleg Masayev, Salikh decided to visit his children and wife,
who lived at their relatives’ in the village of Sernovodsk of the Sunzha
District of the Chechen Republic. Salikh Masayev left after telling his brother
that he would flag down a taxi in downtown Grozny and head for Sernovodsk.
Relatives
concerned by Mokhmadsoloros’ absence started looking for him on the following
day. At Grozny’s central mosque, frequented by Salikh to pray, his brother was
told that people had seen Salikh snatched and taken away by people in
camouflaged uniforms next to the Rosselkhozbank building in downtown Grozny.
On
getting the information, Oleg Masayev turned to the Zavodskoy District Interior
Ministry Department; however, policemen refused to take his statement. His
conversation with the police made it clear that his brother had been detained
on the instructions of the Chechen Republic authorities.
It
was only after insistent demands of human rights activists that Interior
Ministry bodies responded. An internal investigation into the fact of the
refusal to take a statement on the abduction was under way and efforts were taken
to find M. D. Masayev. These efforts have so far led to no result.
Memorial
Human Rights Center
http://www.memo.ru/2009/04/28/2804091.htm
April 27, 2009
Compared to
Memorial Human Rights Center has constantly monitored human rights
violations in the North Caucasus since 1999. We have been recording all cases
of abductions, disappearances without a trace, murders, and other violations
that become known to us. Most of our information comes from the Republic of
Ingushetia and from the Chechen Republic.
Officers of Memorial Human Rights Center don’t have the capability to
record all violations of human rights in Ingushetia and Chechnya, therefore our
information cannot be considered exhausting. Nevertheless, comparing the amount
of the crimes we have recorded in different periods, one can make conclusions
about the situation in these regions and its dynamics.
Chechnya
Memorial Human Rights Center has already noticed that the amount of
abductions in Chechnya grew again in the end of the year 2008 (http://www.memo.ru/2009/01/13/1301091.htm).
This tendency is preserved: in all 34 persons were abducted in January-April 2009 (20 of them were
residents of Dargo village in Vedensky district of the Chechen Republic). 27
persons among those abducted were later set free; two were found murdered; two
went missing; three “surfaced” later in temporary detention wards or
investigation wards and are now under investigation.
To compare, Memorial Human Rights Center recorded 42 cases of abduction
in the whole of the year 2008 (7 persons in January-April 2008).
The circumstances of these abductions indicate that representatives of
law enforcement were involved in these crimes.
At the same time, the amount of murders of civilians recorded by our
officers has gone down. 2 murders have become known to the Memorial this year.
In the same period of the last year, Memorial Human Rights Center recorded 5
murders of civilians.
On the other hand, it is as yet impossible to speak of any reliably
established tendencies.
Ingushetia
The situation with abductions in Ingushetia has remained at about the
last year’s level. In 2009 three persons were abducted in the republic; two of
them were later murdered, and one disappeared. To compare, two local residents
were abducted in January-April 2008 (one was later set free, the other one
disappeared), and 22 persons were abducted in the duration of the whole year.
That being said, the amount of murders in the republic has increased:
Memorial Human Rights Center has recorded 59 murder cases in four months of the
current year.
Among those murdered:
- 21 civilian (6 persons were murdered by the unknown; 5 persons were
murdered by law enforcement officers or allegedly so; 2 persons were apparently
murdered by militants; 8 persons were blown up in the Office of Bailiffs),
- 12 officers of the local law enforcement,
- 6 attached military officers and enlisted soldiers,
- 20 militants.
To compare, in January-April 2008,
Memorial Human Rights Center has recorded 9 persons perished, among them 6
civilians and 3 law enforcement officers (
Memorial Human Rights Center sends inquiries to the RF Prosecutor
General’s Office and to the prosecutor’s office of the corresponding region on
each known case of abduction. We request that facts be verified and criminal
cases be brought in regarding the abduction, disappearance, or murder. In some
cases, Memorial Human Rights Center provides victims with the assistance of
attorneys.
MEMORIAL HUMAN RIGHTS CENTER[29]
27 March, 2009
Popular practice:
Arsons of houses of
terrorist relatives continue in Chechnya
The practice of setting houses of terrorist relatives on fire continues
in the Chechen Republic. Memorial Human Rights Center has registered 26 such
cases since summer 2008 (see List 1). Such arsons are undoubtedly committed to
put pressure on the relatives of militants hiding in the woods. The Chechen
authorities approve of such measures to say the least. For instance, Chechen
President Ramzan Kadyrov said the following, when commenting on the relatives
of militants: “We should use the Chechen
traditions. Such people used to be cursed and expelled. This is normal, as they
feed information to their relatives hiding in the woods. They warn them of
danger: “The police inspected our village today. Beware, and may Allah save
you.” They provide them with food and assistance. Militants kill our police
officers and burn down our houses. Every single family has a relative hiding in
the woods. I myself spent some time in the woods; I talked to 7,000 people who
surrendered and left the woods. So, those families whose relatives hide in the
woods are accomplices to their crimes; they are themselves terrorists,
extremists, Wahhabis, and shaitans. Some of them publicly disavow their
relatives just to be left alone, but they covertly continue assisting
terrorists.” (Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov’s speech at a cabinet
meeting on August 9, 2008, broadcast by the Grozny TV channel at 9.37 p.m.). To
give him justice, it is worth mentioning that similar tactics were actively
used by militants against people who chose to support the current authorities
of the republic (see List 2). The latest information on arsons in Chechnya is
given below.
Unidentified people set ablaze the house of Aslanbek Ebishev at 25,
Pervomaiskaya Street, Shali, Chechnya on 13 March, 2009.
On 12 March, the Shali Recreation Center hosted a meeting of regional
authorities and law-enforcement officials with the local youth. The meeting
discussed the fight against Wahhabis and those falling under their influence.
The authorities were represented by the head of the Shali District
administration, police chief M. Daudov, District Prosecutor Serbiyev, the
village cadi (judge), and several elders specially invited from Grozny. The
precinct police officer invited Yusup Ebishev to the meeting and the latter was
the first to be given the floor. He said that the police, the prosecutor’s
office, and public organizations should join their efforts in the fight against
Wahhabism. Parents cannot always be near their children, while the Wahhabism
ideology wins the minds of young people through websites, telephone messages,
literature, and video disks, sold everywhere including mosques. According to
Ebishev, society should also play a serious role in curbing such influence, as
parents cannot cope with the problem on their own.
All other speakers argued against Yusup’s statement that society and
law-enforcement agencies, as opposed to parents alone, were responsible for the
fact that young people joined militants, and the tone of each speech grew
tougher. At night two cars stopped next to the Ebishevs’ house; armed people,
wearing balaclavas, got out of the cars, entered the yard, and set ablaze the
house of Aslanbek Ebishev, Yusup Ebishev’s brother.
It was the second arson suffered by the Ebishevs. Officers of an
unidentified security service of the Chechen Republic set Yusup Ebishev’s house
on fire on the night of 28 August, 2008. The house of the Musliyevs was also
set on fire in Shali on the same night. The houses of the Musliyevs and the
Ebishevs were set ablaze because their children had joined militants. The system
of measures designed to counter illegal armed groups and adopted in the Chechen
Republic includes putting pressure on relatives of militants up to direct
threats to their lives and health. The Ebishevs already suffered a heavy loss
in January 2000. Yusup’s eldest son, 18-year-old Alikhan, was killed in a
rocket attack targeting Shali.
List 1.
The list of burnt down
houses of relatives of suspected terrorists (Chechnya)
On 4 July, 2008, the house belonging to the Musikhanovs family was set
on fire by officers of an unidentified security service in the village of
Samashki of the Achkhoi-Martan District.
On 12 July, 2008, unidentified armed people wearing camouflage uniforms
and balaclavas burnt down the house of Sherpudin Demelkhanov in the village of
Geldagana of the Kurchaloy District.
On the night of 12 July, 2008, an attempt at setting on fire the house
of Sheikh Yusupov, born in 1956, at 9, Sovetskaya Street, Kurchaloy, was made.
The house was saved by the neighbours.
On 13 July, 2008, the house of Ibragim Magomadov was burnt down in the
village of Khidi-Khutor of the Kurchaloy District. The arsonists also set
ablaze a field engine owned by the Magomadovs.
On 16 July, 2008, armed people wearing balaclavas and camouflage
uniforms stormed the house of Iliyas Umarov, forced everyone outside, and burnt
the house down in the village of Nikikhita of the Kurchaloy District. They also
burnt down the house of his cousin Akhmed Umarov in a similar fashion.
On 17 July, 2008, the house of the Abdulkhanovs was burnt down in the
village of Aslanbek Sheripov of the Shatoy District. At the very same time the
house of an old couple of Yusupovs was set on fire in the village of Gikalovsky
of the Grozny Rural District, but their neighbours helped them put out the
fire. On the night of 22 July, 2008, the house of Ramzan Abdurakhmanov was
burnt down in the village of Tsentoroi of the Kurchaloy District. On the night
of 30 July, 2008, houses of Elimkhanov and Makhmud Azizov were set on fire in
the village of Alleroy of the Kurchaloy District. On 4 August, 2008, the house
belonging to the Izrailovs at 5, Orekhova Street was burnt down in the town of
Argun.
On the night of 28 August, 2008, houses belonging to the
Yusupkhadzhievs, the Ebishevs, and the Musliyevs were burnt down in Shali. On
the same night, the house of the Aliyevs was set ablaze in the village of
Mesker-Yurt.
On 2 October, 2008, the houses of the Darshayevs, the Butsugovs, and
Zhovtayeva, which accommodated the Dakhayevs, were burnt down in the village of
Alleroy of the Kurchaloy District.
On the night of 4 December, 2008, the houses of the Ospanovs and the
Estamirovs were burnt down in the village of Tevzana of the Vvedeno District,
and an attempt to set a house on fire was made in the village of Khatuni of the
Vvedeno District.
On 5 December, 2008, the house of the Gakayevs was burnt down in the
village of Elistanzhi of the Vvedeno District.
On 23 December, 2008, the house of the Zavgayevs was burnt down in the
village of Novoterskoye of the Naurskaya District.
On 23 December, 2008, the house of the Butsayevs was burnt down in the
village of Rubezhnoye of the Naurskaya District.
On the night of 13 March, 2009, the house of the Ebishevs at 25,
Pervomayskaya Street, Shali, was set on fire for the second time.
List 2.
Arson of houses by militants
According to witnesses, a unit of up to 300 armed militants of the
Chechen Republic of Ichkeria entered the village of Alleroy of the Kurchaloy
District at 8.15 p.m. on 23 September, 2004. The militants split up into
several groups. One of the groups surrounded the building, headquartering a
security service reporting directly to Ramzan Kadyrov (the so-called
‘kadyrovtsy’). However, the militants did not attempt to enter the building or
even fire at it, confining themselves to shots in the air. At that time a Volga
motor-car drove out of the headquarters. The militants stopped the car, forced
the driver out, and burnt the car down, letting the driver go.
Another team of militants, led by Akhmed Avdarkhanov, entered the yard
of Suleyman Abuyev, leader of the local ‘kadyrovtsy’ unit. Suleyman’s mother
was inside the house at the time. Avdarkhanov told her that he would set ablaze
her son’s house since the latter had betrayed their faith and promised to burn
down the house of her second son, Saltan Abuyev, an ex-head of the Kurchaloy
Interior Ministry Department killed by the militants on 20 September, 2001. The
militants set one of the houses on fire, leaving the other one intact for the
family to live in.
A helicopter appeared over the village at about 11 p.m. The militants
opened machine-gun fire at the helicopter, after which it left. There was no
combat, other than chaotic fire in various parts of the village. Nevertheless,
a 13-year-old girl was reported to have been wounded as a result of the fire.
The militants walked around the village, shopped, and paid for their purchases.
They left the village at about midnight.
The ‘kadyrovtsy’ arrived at the village on the morning of 24 September.
They were extremely aggressive and occasionally shouted threats at the locals,
promising to wipe the village off the face of the earth. In an apparent attempt
to take revenge on the militants the ‘kadyrovtsy’ burnt down several houses of
their relatives, in particular, houses of Khas-Magomed Nasurov and Ruslan
Dalkhadov (he was detained and killed by the ‘kadyrovtsy’ in spring 2004). The
late Dalkhadov’s wife and five underage children were left homeless. According
to Alleroy residents, a total of nine houses were burnt down within two days:
two houses belonging to the Abuyevs and seven houses of terrorist relatives.
A team of unidentified armed people, supposedly militants, killed two
women and set on fire several local houses in the village of Dyshno-Vvedeno of
the Vvedeno District, Chechnya, at about midnight on 10 August, 2005. One
person was abducted. The militants first attacked the house of the
Abdulkerimovs at 5, Pochtovaya Street. A group of eight people stormed the
house and grabbed Deshi Yezidovna Abdulkerimova, the owner. They duct-taped the
woman to the bed, sprayed the rooms with gasoline found in the yard, and set
the house on fire, leaving Abdulkerimova inside. According to her neighbours,
who had told the militants her address, they accused the old woman of
collaborating with the federal authorities and of the fact that her grandson
was a police officer. They did not allow the neighbours to put out the fire.
Abdulkerimova was burnt alive.
After that the unidentified militants approached the house of the
Satayevs at 51, Rechnaya Street. They called Ayzan A. Satayeva, born in 1955,
and demanded money. Several days before a man had entered Satayeva’s
café in the village of Vvedeno and told her that she was to pay 100,000
rubles to militants. It was the same amount of money that the militants
demanded now. Ayzan said that she was not able to pay so much money as she had
orphans to support. The leader ordered one of his subordinates to kill the
woman, but the latter did not comply at once. Ayzan cried and begged for mercy.
The leader swore and repeated his order. One of the militants fired his machine
gun at Ayzan’s head. When leaving, the militants fired several tracer bursts in
the air.
Then they went to the house of local policeman Alikhan Altemirov at 25,
Shkolnaya Street. He was not at home at that time. The militants kicked out his
mother, Khavra Gazaliyevna Atabayeva, and brothers Bulat and Zaindi, tied their
hands down with duct tape, put them on the ground in their neighbours’ yard,
and demanded the keys to the car of their relative. Khavra said that they did
not have the keys. Then the militants opened fire on the car, poured gasoline
over the house, and set it ablaze. When the entire house was on fire, they
threatened to wipe out the entire family if Alikhan Altemirov did not resign from
the police. They also set ablaze the house of police sergeant Khalis Turayev at
91, Ushayeva Street, kicking his wife and five little children outside. They
also threatened to kill the entire family, if Turayev stayed with the police
force.
They burnt down the house of Kazbek Debishev, a serviceman of the
Vvedeno District commandant’s office, in a similar fashion. They went on air
and reported the ‘job’ done. The conversation was intercepted by the Vvedeno
District police.
According to the locals, while a group of suspected militants was acting
in the village, they also set up a roadblock at the intersection of the Lenina
Street and the Sadovaya Street to stop and inspect every passing vehicle. That
was how they stopped and then abducted Senior Duty Officer of the Vvedeno
District Department of the Interior Ministry, Senior Lieutenant Anzor
Nazarbekovich Muradov.
His relative from the Rostov Region, whom Muradov was driving to his
parents, witnessed the abduction. He said that at first the militants had intended
to shoot Muradov on the spot, but then one of them had recognized him and spoke
in his defence. The militants had an argument, but then decided against killing
Muradov. Instead, they drove his car to a side, opened fire on it, and took
Muradov with them. Muradov’s whereabouts are currently unknown.
A unit of up to 60 armed men entered the village of Benoy-Vvedeno of the
Nozhay-Yurt District, Chechnya, on the night of 13 June, 2008. They set up
roadblocks, and burnt down three houses belonging to the Umarovs: that of Zamid
Umarov, his son Khamid, and his grandson Almaksud. According to their
relatives, Khamid and Almaksud were officers of the so-called security service
of Ramzan Kadyrov and members of the unit led by Alambek Yasayev (In 2007,
Alambek Yasayev fell out of favor with the Chechen authorities and was fired
from the post of deputy interior minister). Khamid and Almaksud served in a
security agency of some sort at the time of the incident.
The militants tried to stop a passing vehicle at a temporary roadblock,
but the driver ignored their warnings and kept on driving. The militants opened
small arms fire on the car, wounding Khami Yasayev and killing his son and
nephew Aslan. They were driving home from their relatives’. When they saw there
was a wounded person in the car, the militants ordered him to be taken to
hospital; however, the wounded person died on the way to hospital. All three
victims were relatives of Alambek Yasayev, but the attack on the vehicle was an
accident. The unit seized a large arms cache at one of the houses. The
militants freely left the village on the same night.
For
more information, see also:
http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/caucas1/msg/2008/08/m146310.htm
http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/caucas1/msg/2008/08/m144307.htm
http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/caucas1/msg/2008/09/m146765.htm
“Unfortunately, there are females among us who tend to forget the code
of conduct of women from mountain tribes. Their male relatives, who consider
themselves to be offended by their conduct, sometimes resort to the mob law
against such females.”
That was the comment of the Chechen ombudsman Nurdi Nukhadzhiyev on the
murder of six young Chechen females, which took place on the night of 25-26
November[30].
Three bodies were found in the Staropromyslovsky District of Grozny;
bodies of two women who had been shot were found near an abandoned kindergarten
on the road from Grozny to Shatoy; and the sixth body was found on the road
from Grozny to the stanitsa of Petropavlovskaya.
The six females were shot point-blank in the chest or in the head. Spent
cartridges were found next to the bodies.
Yet another burnt body of a young girl, shot in the head, was found
outside the village of Engenoy of the Gudermes District two days later.
Reporters called this series of cruel murders an execution.
Everyone
immediately decided without a doubt that the women were executed for unbecoming
conduct, though extrajudicial executions are nothing new in Chechnya. Just a
short time ago, such executions were carried out for different reasons and
sparked a wave of indignation.
How can it be that the only regret expressed by the Chechen ombudsman
with regard to the terrible tragedy was at the fact that Chechen women had
forgotten the “code of conduct of women from mountain tribes?” He never offered
his condolences to relatives of the victims.
The investigation into the killings has just begun. We have no idea who
shot the defenceless women.
However, the reaction of the Chechen ombudsman and many others has the
following explanation: a woman in Chechnya has ceased to be an equal and
respected human being, capable of deciding herself what to do with her life and
what destiny to choose.
Ramzan Kadyrov was more civil in commenting on the murders. According to
a press release of his press office, the Chechen President said at an expanded
meeting of the Chechen Cabinet and heads of district and municipal
administrations on 28 November:
“This is an outrage. Nothing of the kind has ever occurred in the
territory of the Chechen Republic. Actions of the murderers, no matter who they
might be, cannot be justified by any traditions. Moreover that, neither the
Chechen people, nor Islam have such traditions. Therefore, I have always called
for stepping up efforts aimed at early prevention of such crimes, at spiritual
and moral education and at creating a healthier society.”[31]
However, what does Ramzan Kadyrov mean by moral education? In an
interview, posted on the same website on 11 November, he condemns girls who
wear European clothes:
“…nowadays I am very concerned about the kind of clothes our girls wear.
Brides sometimes meet their future mothers-in-law and relatives of their grooms
almost naked with their head uncovered. They wear mini-skirts and untressed
hair in the streets. The mentality of our people does not permit such conduct.
I would really like the Chechen girl to look like a true Muslim,
respecting customs and traditions of her people.
The committee for youth affairs plans to contract famous couturiers to
design a common uniform for youth educational institutions.”
These might seem to be harmless wishes. However, the Chechen President
has more than once quite clearly stated the attitudes he has towards women.
An excerpt from Ramzan Kadyrov’s interview to Aleksandr Grymov, a
reporter of the Komsomolskaya Pravda
newspaper, published on 24 September, is given below:[32]
“I have the right to criticise my wife. My wife does not have the right
to criticise me. The Chechen wife is a housewife. The woman should know her
place… The woman should give her love to the man. … The woman is a property,
while the man is the owner. In Chechnya if the woman misbehaves, her husband,
farther, and brother are responsible. According to our tradition, if the woman
fornicates, her relatives kill her. Sometimes a brother kills a sister or a
husband kills a wife.
Men are incarcerated because of this… Being the President, I cannot let
people kill each other. So, don’t let them (women)
wear shorts.”
Well then, the woman is property, designed to please the man and
deprived of the right to criticise him or provoke punishment by wearing shorts
(Frankly speaking, I have never seen a Chechen woman wearing shorts!). And the
owner, encouraged by the authorities, may go ahead and have several wives, and
if one of them misbehaves he may well get rid of her and get another piece of
property.
Women have better put up with it, stay at home and do the housekeeping
so as not to draw the fire upon themselves, both figuratively and literally.
Chechnya has recently suffered a brutal war, when villages and cities
were bombed into the ground and many people were killed! Young men were
detained, tortured, and killed during sweep operations regardless of their
innocence or guilt. Who was the first to openly fight against arbitrariness?
Who blocked motor roads with tanks rolling along them? Who spent endless hours
standing outside the offices of prosecutors and military commanders in an
attempt to save their sons, husbands, and brothers? And finally, who found a
way to tell the world of the atrocities committed in Chechnya? Who helped the
Chechen people survive?
Chechen women, that is who! They openly fought for their people, their
survival, and honor without any weapons.
Zeynab Goshayeva, who stood beside us at every anti-war rally, and
returned to
Eliza Musayeva, Lida Yusupova, and Lipkhan Bazayeva, who set up human
rights offices in Chechnya at the most troubled times, were brave enough to
counter frequently drunk armed people, committing atrocities in the course of
cleansing operations, and speak the truth in the face of high-ranking federal
officials.
Natasha Estemirova, who brought a videotape showing the destruction,
murders, and graves to
The same holds true for ordinary women, mothers, and wives who evacuated
their families from the war-torn Chechnya to other Russian regions. When men
could not go outside without risking a prison term for drugs, weapons, or
explosives which somehow by a miracle found their way into their pockets, even
if the latter had been sewn up in advance, it was women who had to shoulder the
burden of providing for their families. After feeding their families in the
morning they would spend hours in the cold in the market selling vegetables, or
sweep bus stops, or move huge garbage cans.
A girl from a refugee camp managed to enter an elite Moscow college and
graduated with honours. And what was all that for? When she returned to her
parents to now peaceful Grozny, she was forced to marry an unknown and totally
strange man. The “beautiful Caucasian custom” of abducting the bride was in
fact observed as follows: the girl was snatched in the street, dropped so her
head hit the blacktop, and then pushed into a car unconscious. She regained
consciousness at the house of her future husband, without realising what was
going on but being perfectly aware of the fact that no one would come to her
rescue.
Once I received a woman, holding quite a high-ranking post in
present-day Chechnya. She came for medical reasons, but wanted to talk about a
different subject: “You might think what all the fuss is about – to wear or not
to wear a headscarf. However, the matter is not the headscarf itself, but the
humiliation we have to cope with on a daily basis. My office can be stormed by
armed young men just for a check whether all the girls wear headscarves and
becoming clothes. They lecture me as well, and interfere with my work. Never
before would strange men dare treat a woman, let alone their elder with a
higher social rank, like that.” And then suddenly fear showed in her face:
“Please, do not use my name anywhere and do not retell this conversation to
anybody, otherwise they will find me.”
I promised to keep my mouth shut and I never talked about girls abducted
to become wives or concubines, and underage daughters taken away from their
mothers who could not get help from officials. One of particularly active
mothers like that was secretly told: “No one will help you, they marry underage
girls themselves.”
I can no longer keep silent. It is not because I believe that the seven
women were killed by their relatives (this version does not seem to hold up),
it is because I saw the reaction of Chechen society to the tragedy and read
comments on Chechen websites. And then I feared for the fate of those I have
grown to like over the past few years and whom I wish happiness and freedom
regardless of their sex, confession, race, or nationality as is stipulated in
the Russian Constitution, so frequently claimed to be adhered to by the Chechen
President.
Svetlana Gannushkina
3 December, 2008
|
Prosecutor’s
Office of
the Russian Federation Prosecutor’s
Office of
the Republic of Mordovia Dubravnaya
Prosecutor’s Office 50,
Dzerzhinsky Street, Yavas, Zubovo-Polyansky District 431160 Tel.
(8-257) 2-25-67, Fax 2-40-89 28.01.2009
No. 256zh 2005/61 |
To S.A. Gannushkina Head of the Migration Rights Network of Memorial
Human Rights Center |
The Dubravnaya Prosecutor’s Office has
investigated your inquiry about the violation of the penitentiary legislation
of the Russian Federation by the administration of the FBU IK-4 penal colony in
the form of an improper medical treatment of, an improper nutrition of, a
pressure on, an infliction of cruel punishment on, and the refusal to transfer
convict Z. I. Kodzoyev to another region for health reasons.
The investigation has established that convict
Z. I. Kodzoyev, born in 1972, arrived at the Office of the Federal Penitentiary
Service for the Republic of Mordovia on 18 March, 2005 and served his term at
the FBU IK-4 penal colony in the Republic of Mordovia.
During a medical examination on the arrival, he
pointed out that he had had pulmonary tuberculosis since 1994, peptic ulcer
since 1992, and a traumatic brain injury with craniotomy in 1997-1998.
Anthropometric data – a height of
On 30 May, 2005, Z. I. Kodzoyev applied to the
medical unit with a complaint about a headache. Given a diagnosis of
“After-effects of the brain injury with a vegetative syndrome. The post
craniotomy state,” he underwent a ten-day outpatient treatment and was relieved
of fatigue duties in hot weather under direct sunlight and hard work, another
round of outpatient treatment took place from 14 July through 1 August, 2005.
From 4 October until 1 November, 2005, Kodzoyev
underwent medical examination in hospital for convicts, and got advisory
opinions of medical experts.
4 October, 2005 – thoracic cage photofluorogram
– heart and lungs found healthy. Electrocardiography results normal. Blood and
urine tests normal.
5 October, 2005 – fibrogastroduodenoscopy,
medical opinion – superficial gastritis. Duodenal cap ulcer.
6 October, 2005 – consultation of a
psychiatrist, diagnosis - after-effects of the brain injury with a craniotomy.
Asthenoneurotic syndrome, vascular and sedative treatment.
6 October, 2005 – examination by an
ophthalmologist, no pathology detected.
14 October, 2005 – plan radiography of the
skull in two planes – post-craniotomy defect of the frontal bone. Metal clips.
Consultations of a surgeon, diagnosis -
after-effects of the brain injury with a craniotomy in the right frontotemporal
area with pulsation of the brain.
Z. I. Kodzoyev underwent treatment at the
therapeutics department for recrudescence of peptic ulcer, duodenal cap ulcer.
He was discharged from hospital for convicts on 1 November, 2005.
He was put under dispensary observation at the FBU IK-4 penal colony of the Office of
the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Republic of Mordovia, a procedure for
his medical monitoring and treatment was determined.
The penal colony medical unit provided Z. I.
Kodzoyev with outpatient treatment for ten days from 2 February, 2006 and again
from 31 May until 10 June, 2006 for recrudescence of gastroduodenitis and
peptic ulcer, and a diet was prescribed.
12 April, 2006 – an active call, a vascular and
vitamin treatment for brain injury was prescribed.
22 June, 2006 – examined by a surgeon at the
penal colony medical unit and treated for lumbodynia.
A follow-up examination and treatment in
hospital for convicts starting from 27 June, 2006. Thoracic cage
photofluorogram normal. Fibrogastroduodenoscopy, medical opinion – frank
duodenitis. Cicatricial-ulcerous deformation of the duodenal cap. Examination
by a psychiatrist and a surgeon, the diagnoses remained the same.
On 30 June, 2006, started receiving treatment
at the therapeutics department with the following diagnosis: “recrudescence of
gastroduodenitis, remission of peptic ulcer, after-effects of the brain injury
with a craniotomy, asthenoneurotic syndrome.” Kodzoyev was put on a sick list
from 30 June, 2006 until 11 July, 2006.
18 July, 2006 – examination by a neurologist,
diagnosis – after-effects of the brain injury with a craniotomy in the form of
an asthenoneurotic syndrome, the frontal bone defect, and pulsation of the
brain. No threat of recrudescence of lumbodynia. It was recommended that his
job placement should rule out work in the sewing workshop, at night, and near
moving mechanisms. Vascular, vitamin, and analgesic treatment at the medical
unit was prescribed.
24 June, 2006 – hospital treatment at the
medical unit was proposed, Kodzoyev declined, outpatient treatment was
conducted.
27 September, 2006 – active call, preventive
treatment for existing diseases was prescribed.
20 February, 2007 – treatment for
vertebragenous lumbodynia was prescribed.
27 February, 2007 – Kodzoyev applied for bed
rest, bed rest was not granted and in this light Kodzoyev broke off his medical
treatment.
21 March, 2007 – active call. Medical
examination was conducted, and recommendations were given. No treatment was
prescribed for the lack of medical symptoms.
16 July, 2007 – sent by the Office of the
Federal Penitentiary Service for the
Kodzoyev arrived at the FBU IK-4 of the Office
of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Republic of Mordovia on 14
December, 2007.
8 January, 2008 – active call, medical
examination was conducted, no treatment was prescribed for the lack of medical
symptoms.
4 March, 2008 – thoracic cage photofluorogram
normal.
11 May, 2008 – Kodzoyev applied to the medical
unit with complaints of cough with stethocatharsis, laboured breathing during
physical activities, a feeling of obstruction behind the breastbone, weakness,
a lack of appetite, and a body temperature of 37.4 degrees Centigrade.
Diagnosis acute bronchitis, a treatment was prescribed.
13 May, 2008 – another sick call, complaints
remained the same, a body temperature of 38 degrees Centigrade.
15 May, 2008 – examined
by a phthisiotherapist, suspicion of tuberculosis, sent to hospital for
convicts.
22 May, 2008 – admitted
to the chest department of the hospital for convicts, treated until 19
December, 2008 with a diagnosis of “infiltrative tuberculosis of the upper part
of the right lung in the exsolved phase. Few view computerised tomography (+).
Dispensary registration group 1B.”
When in hospital for
convicts, Z. I. Kodzoyev once against received advisory opinions of a
neurologist and a surgeon, diagnoses remained the same.
25 October, 2008 – kidney
ultrasonic scanning – signs of nephrolithiasis.
27 October, 2008 –
examined by an ophthalmologist, diagnosis - neuropathy of the fundus of the
eye.
The hospital discharge
report contains an entry, stating that Kodzoyev repeatedly breached hospital
rules.
On 19 December, 2009, Z.
I. Kodzoyev was transferred to the FBU LIU-3 medical penitentiary of the Office
of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Republic of Mordovia, a special
medical treatment facility, designed to house and provide outpatient treatment
to patients, suffering from active tuberculosis, with a diagnosis of
“infiltrative tuberculosis of the first and the second sections of the right
lung in the resolution phase, initial fibrosis. Few view computerised
tomography (-). Dispensary registration group 1B. After-effects of the brain
injury with a craniotomy in the form of an asthenoneurotic syndrome, the frontal
bone defect, and pulsation of the brain.” A phthisiotherapist conducted a
dispensary registration, determined treatment, and prescribed antituberculous
medicines until May 2009, X-ray four times a year, blood, urine, and phlegm
tests once every three months, additional tests if necessary.
26 December, 2008 – the
Republic Diagnostic Center carried out a magnetic resonance imaging of the
brain. Medical opinion – after-effects of the craniotomy, cystic lesions and
scars on both frontal lobes. Atrophic changes of the brain.
In the course of his
incarceration, Kodzoyev has twice received certificates for additional packages
for health reasons.
At the present time
Kodzoyev’s condition is stable, there is no decline in the state of his health.
Kodzoyev gets treatment, prescribed by the phthisiotherapist and the
psychiatrist.
Convict Z. I. Kodzoyev is
under medical observation; he gets medical treatment for corresponding
diseases.
No violations in the
management and the treatment of convict Z. I. Kodzoyev were detected.
Under Order of the
Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation No.
346/254 dated 28 August, 2001 “On adopting the List of Medical
Contraindications to Serving Terms of Imprisonment in Certain Areas of the
Russian Federation”, there are no medical contraindications to convict Z.I.
Kodzoyev’s serving his term of prison at a facility of the Office of the
Federal Penitentiary Service for the Republic of Mordovia.
Provision of meals to
convicts at the penal colony is organized in compliance with Order of the
Ministry of Justice No. 125 dated 2 August, 2005 “On Adopting Standards of
Nutrition and Material Supply for Convicts…” Officer of the day supervises food
products being put into the pot and makes a corresponding entry in the food
products logbook. The nourishment value quality control is exercises three
times a day by medical personnel, who take samples immediately before food
distribution.
Under Chapter 13 of the
Correctional Institution Internal Regulations, approved by Order No. 205 of the
Russian Ministry of Justice dated 3 November, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as
the Regulations), convicts are entitled to submit proposals, statements,
applications, and complaints in their own name only. All written proposals,
statements, applications, and complaints are forwarded to corresponding
addresses by the penal institution administration. They are registered by
special registration departments or the penal colony secretariat.
The investigation has
established that the logbook for registering complaints and statements of
convicts, submitted from 2005 until 2008, lists one (1) appeal of convict Z.I.
Kodzoyev to Director of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service to be
transferred to another region to serve his sentence. No reply has been received
so far. The mail has been recorded in the logbook for registering complaints
and statements of convicts and forwarded to addressees within the period of
time, envisioned by the law. No flaws were detected in the work of special
registration departments or the penal colony secretariat pertaining to
forwarding and receiving mail.
Facts of putting pressure
on convict Z. I. Kodzoyev are denied by questioned officials of the FBU IK-4
penal colony administration: penal colony head V. S. Glinov, deputy head of the
penal colony for security and operations D. N. Gorbunkov, security department
head R. Sh. Palyutin, operations department I. S. Shindyakov, as well as
convicts living in the same cell with Z. I. Kodzoyev: A. N. Zarayev, B. V.
Meshcheryakov, V. F. Roshchenko, Ye. V. Altabayev, and I. Ye. Gorkun.
The investigation has
demonstrated that the allegations specified in the inquiry have not been
proved. The Prosecutor’s Office has no reasons to react to the allegations in
question.
If you chose to disagree
with the decision taken, you have the right to appeal against the decision to a
superior prosecutor’s office or a court of law.
Dubravnaya Prosecutor
Legal Counsellor First
Class
V.A. Doroshenko
ADMINISTRATION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OMBUDSMAN IN THE
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
|
47, Myasnitskaya Street, Moscow 107084, Tel.: 607-39-69, Fax: 607-39-77 No. 10272-29 To No. 141 dated
17.03.2009 |
To S.A. Gannushkina Chairperson of Civic Assistance Committee 33, Dolgorukovskaya Street, Building 6, Moscow
127006 |
Dear Svetlana Alekseyevna,
Your inquiry about the protection of the rights of convict Z.I.
Zubayrayev, imprisoned at FBU LIU-14 medical penitentiary of the Office of the
Russian Federal Penitentiary Service for the Volgograd Region, addressed to the
Human Rights Ombudsman in the Russian Federation, has been examined.
The office of the Human Rights Ombudsman in the Russian Federation has
been monitoring the situation concerning convict Z.I. Zubayrayev since 21
January, 2009.
On the instructions of the Ombudsman, we hereby
forward to you a copy of the latest information, provided to us on request by
the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service.
Annex: a copy of the
reply containing two pages.
Sincerely
yours,
Deputy
Head of the Office