Human Rights Center "Memorial"

PEACEFUL MASS PROTESTS IN CHECHNYA
Spring – early Summer 2001

28^th February 2001. The inhabitants of Alkhan-Kala, tired of the arbitrary rule and "cleansing operations" began to gather at the wood-processing plant for an anti-war meeting. Several hundred people were going from here to the centre of the settlement when they were stopped by soldiers who fired warning shots over their heads. Armed vehicles had their machine-guns aimed into the crowd. The commanding officer ordered his soldiers to prepare to shoot to defeat. Those gathered at the meeting were forced to disperse.

The same day, immediately after lunch, a "cleansing operation" began in Alkhan-Kale.

2^nd March 2001. A group of special unit federal forces seized 13 men from the village of Dzhalka. There was no legal basis for this detainment.

On the 3^rd of March, a spontaneous rally in front of the building of the executive body of the federal authorities in Gudermes demanded the release of detainees. About a hundred people took part, mostly inhabitants of Dzhalka and relatives of those detained. Subsequently, the women of Dzhalka went over to the railway and blocked it to passing trains.

8^th March 2001. In Grozny several dozen women gathered in Theatre Square. They demanded the return of their sons and husbands, who had disappeared without trace after being held by the representatives of the federal forces.

11-14^th March 2001. Federal forces carried out a "cleansing operation" in the town of Argun. In the course of the "cleansing operation" over several days, about 170 people were detained.

On the 15^th March, alarmed for the fate of those detained, the inhabitants began a rally next to the office of the town commandant.

On the 17^th March, the public prosecutor for the Chechen Republic, V. Chernov, with his deputy, B. Gantamirov, came to the town to resolve the situation. Soon most of the detainees were freed. However, eleven of those detained had disappeared (four inhabitants of Argun detained during the "cleansing operation" of this town were later found dead. There is a second burial of killed civilians at the military base in Khankal).

Later it became known that back on the 13^th March, near the military base in Khankal, the buried bodies of four people had been discovered after being shot. From photographs of the bodies they were identified to have been from among the eleven having 'disappeared'.

A criminal investigation into the kidnap and murder has been launched by the public prosecutor.

15^th March 2001. The federal forces carried out a punitive operation in the settlement of Novogroznenskii. (Events in the settlement of Novogroznenskii on 15^th March 2001)

According to official statements, in the morning on this day near to the settlement of Novogroznenskii, fighters attacked a military column of the federal forces and as a result of this nine servicemen were injured.

Attack vehicles of the military column turned their guns and opened fire on houses of the settlement and on cars which happened to be on the road at that moment. Then the armoured vehicles entered the settlement. The soldiers fired at everything before them: houses, cars, people, and cows. Several people were deliberately shot. In all, eight people were killed, including a 19-year-old girl and a 78-year-old man. Nine were injured, including a three-year-old girl and a young woman. Twenty homes were badly damaged and six cars left burnt.

That same day, several hundred women blocked the traffic on the main road passing through Chechnya. They remained there three days chanting "No to murders, cleanings, robbery and camps!", "Where are you, leaders of Chechnya? Where are the muftis? Where are the judges? They are killing us with your agreement!"

On 18^th March in the village of Novogroznenskii (Oiskhara) in the Gudermes Region there was a mass rally. Vice-chairman of the government of Il'yasov on military structures, Yurii Pavlovich Em, spoke for the authorities, recognising the fact of crimes committed by servicemen, and promised that the public prosecutor would launch an investigation and find the guilty.

On 7^th April 2001 in Grozny, the students of a gymnasium picketed the building of the administration, demanding the release of a 9^th-year pupil of the local gymnasium, Salman Abubakarov. S. Abubakarov had been detained the previous evening at home.

Representatives of the MVD announced to those gathered that Abubakarov had been detained on lawful grounds – on searching him a grenade had been found.

At the same time, at the regional operation headquarters, a correspondent of Interfax was told that the 9^th-year pupil had been detained whilst preparing an explosive device.

On 9^th April 2001 in Grozny, the administration building was picketed by several dozen women demanding the release of Salman Abubakarov.

The Vice-chairman of the government of the Chechen Republic, Yurii Em, who supervises the military department, met with the picketers. He announced to the gathering that the case of Salman Abubakarov would be decided in strict compliance with the law.

In the morning of 10^th April 2001 several hundred inhabitants of the settlement of Dzhalka began to picket the building of the Republican Administration. They practically blocked the entrance and exit of vehicles through the gates of the building of the Chechen Administration. They demanded the release of two shepherds detained the previous day not far from the settlement.

Colonel Aleksandr Pavlenko, military commandant of the Gudermes Region, Colonel Yurii Em, vice-chairman of the government of Chechnya, and Dukvakha Abdurakhmanov, minister of agriculture of the republic met with the picketers. They assured the crowd that relatives would be permitted to see the detainees from Dzhalka. Furthermore, they would ensure that the procedures relating to them would be accelerated.

By 2 pm most of the demonstrators had gone home. However, about 100 women remained 50 m from the administrative building. They didn't believe the promises of the authorities and considered that their offers were insufficiently concrete.

In the evening of 16^th April 2001 in the town of Argun the central hospital and neighbouring street were fired upon for an hour from the roof of a 9-storey building, where a Russian military unit is based. The hospital and homes were significantly damaged. Four patients were wounded.

On the next day, 17^th April, doctors in white coats marched from the hospital to the Argun commandant's office, and then to the building of the town administration.

On 16^th April 2001 the head of the administration of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad Kadyrov, announced that he had made a decree forbidding rallies, gatherings and any other events involving the participation of a large number of people. The decree was intended for "the whole period of anti-terrorist operations until complete stabilisation of the situation in the republic". According to Interfax this document was agreed with the Representative of the President of the RF in charge of the southern federal district. As such a decree obviously violates the constitution, the text of this decree was not published and the decree did not come into force.

On 20^th April 2001 Russian servicemen entered the village of Alkhan-Yurt. Dispersing throughout the settlement, they opened fire on the roofs of the houses with machine guns and automatic rifles. Bursting into the building of a middle-school, where pupils of the second shift were taking their lessons, they opened fire within the school. Near the school they seized pupils of the senior classes. Young men were likewise detained in the streets of the village and at the local market.

In all, at Alkhan-Yurt 25 people were detained, 16 of them schoolchildren. They were taken away to an unknown destination. Towards the evening of the same day, after beating and taunting, most of them were dumped in a field between the villages of Alkhan-Yurt and Goity. Three did not return home. Their fate is unknown.

On the next morning, 21^st April, the inhabitants of the village began a protest. They blocked all the roads passing through the village, notably the Rostov–Baku highway. At the protest rally the inhabitants demanded a stop to the arbitrary rule imposed in Chechnya by the Russian soldiers. The protest continued for three days.

On 29^th April 2001, federal forces carried out a "cleansing operation" at the central market of Grozny, accompanied by robbery and arbitrary detainment of men they came across.

This same day, in front of the Zavodskii Region Temporary Department of Internal Affairs around a hundred women coordinated an unsanctioned rally demanding the release of the detainees. The meeting drew out the head of the administration of the Zavodskii region of Grozny.

Soon all those detained were released.

On 1^st May 2001 at the central market of Grozny, federal servicemen carried out another "cleansing operation", which turned as usual in a assault, with robberies and arbitrary detention of citizens (Grozny, "cleansing operation" of the central market 29^th April – 2^nd May 2001: pogroms, robberies, murders).

On the morning of 2^nd May, three bodies of men who had been shot were found at the market, and soon recognised as among those who had been detained by the servicemen the previous day. This same day a group of women built a barricade in the centre of Grozny at the crossroads of Ulitsa Mira and Prospekt Pobedy. They strewed the road with burnt fridges, crushed car chassis, and bent metal objects and hindered the passage of both military and civilian traffic. The women demanded that the authorities should find those guilty of the three murders, and stop the systematic 'cleanings' of the market accompanied by robberies and assault of the traders and customers.

In the second half of the day the commander of OMON in Chechnya, Musa Gazimagomadov, spoke to the protesting women. He assured them that from today he would put the market under 24-hour guard, allocating 20 men to the task, and from now on would not permit any infringement of the rights of the traders. The traffic was restored.

4^th May 2001. In the town of Argun several hundred women blocked the passage of traffic over the bridge over the river Argun. They dragged chassis of crushed and burnt cars onto the carriageway. They were protesting against the detention of a female teacher from School No. 1. Bursting into the home of this teacher, the servicemen tried to rob her. However, after she tried to resist and began to scream, they took her away to the commandant's office.

Slogans were heard demanding the release of other locals too, taken previously for various reasons into detention. On both banks of the Argun, jams of several hundred vehicles built up, heading for Grozny or from Grozny to Shali, Gudermes, other right-bank destinations as well as Dagestan.

The soldiers at the checkpoint on the bank of the river did not interfere. However, they, in turn, began not to allow even local residents on foot to cross the bridge.

The teacher was freed that day.

On 7^th May 2001, during a special operation in the town of Argun three young men were killed after attempting to resist detention using weapons. The corpses of two were taken to the commandant's office, from where they refused to release them to the relatives. They demanded 10 automatic rifles from the relatives in exchange for the bodies.

On 12^th May around 100 women gathered near the bridge over the river Argun with the intent to block the traffic over it. They demanded the immediate release of the bodies to their relatives. At this very moment, an armoured carrier drove through the crowd, running down the sister of one of those killed. As a result she received a complex fracture of the leg.

The women moved to the office of the commandant. The bodies of the dead were released that day to the relatives.

On 13 May 2001 at 11 am in Theatre Square of Grozny, an unsanctioned rally (as are all such) was held. The participants held placards declaring "The people of Chechnya demand peace", "We demand the release of innocent prisoners", "Russian murderers and robbers out of Chechnya" etc. There were no slogans demanding the independence of Chechnya or the start of negotiations with the leaders of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

At noon the column of demonstrators, chanting slogans, set off for the former Lenin Square. There they made an address to the world, and then dispersed.

The number of demonstrators was around 200.

6^th June 2001. A rally was held in the town of Argun where the locals demanded the release of people detained during the "cleansing operations". More than 100 people took part in the rally held near the central market.

At 5:40 am on 10^th June 2001 the village of Shaami-Yurt was bombarded with artillery fire. Eight shells exploded in the settlement, where one man was killed, several were injured, and several homes destroyed.

Later that day there was a spontaneous rally in the village. Local people demanded that the authorities find and punish those guilty.

The public prosecutor launched a criminal investigation into the shelling.

It is evident that only the artillery of federal forces could strike the village, since the Chechen fighters have no artillery capable of striking the Chechen plains. Meanwhile, the command of the united forces in the Northern Caucuses categorically denies that federal forces had a part in this shelling. The public prosecutor of Chechnya, Viktor Dakhnov, surmised that "a series of land-mines went off" in the settlement.

On 21^st June 2001 at about 4 am, people in camouflage uniform and masks, refusing to identify themselves and for whom they were acting, burst into several houses in the village of Koshkel'dy and dragged young men out of bed. Six young men were taken away to an unknown destination, including one suffering from paralysis of the right side of his body.

In the morning of the same day, knowing of many other cases when people thus taken away disappeared without trace, the inhabitants of the village (mainly women) went out onto the Khasav'yurt-Gudermes highway and blocked it. Soon there were military helicopters grazing over the heads of the crowd.

A short time after the beginning of the demonstration it became known that those detained had been taken to Gudermes, and that they were in the Temporary Department of Internal Affairs (VOVD).

Representatives of the administration of the village immediately travelled to Gudermes, where they met with staff of the VOVD, trying to clarify of what the detainees were accused. They were assured that after checks which would last a maximum of 72 hours, all who were not guilty of anything would be released. The paralysed man was released immediately. When the head of the administration told the other villagers what the VOVD had told him, they decided not to unblock the highway until the detainees were released. However, by this time, people had arrived from other settlements who began to shout slogans of radical political content. The locals decided to keep apart from them, in order not to give the soldiers a cause for violent action. They demanded that the 'professional demonstrators' should cease their shouting. The villagers decided to disperse and wait for the period of checking of the detainees, spoken of by the Gudermes VOVD, to elapse.

In the evening of 27^th June 2001 in the village of Tsotsin-Yurt, servicemen detained five young men. On the morning of 28^th June they were loaded into a helicopter on the outskirts of the village and flown to the Russian military base in Khankala.

From the morning of 29^th June several dozen women, inhabitants of Tsotsin-Yurt blocked the road passing the village, leading to the regional centre, Kurchaloi. They demanded the release of the detainees, since, according to them, they had never taken part in any unlawful action. On the small blockade put up in the road, the women hung placards calling for an end to the war, an end to the genocide of the Chechen people, and a start to negotiations with Maskhadov.

By evening, servicemen arrived to compel the women to unblock the road.

On 30^th June 2001, there was a rally in Theatre Square in Grozny. Several hundred people took part. The meeting had an organised character. Political demands were made. Those gathered called out slogans demanding an end to the war and the start of peaceful negotiations. After the close of the rally, there was a procession about 500 metres along Prospekt Pobedy to the central market.

The military and police did not restrict the conduct of the meeting.

On the 1^st July 2001 there was a spontaneous rally before the city administration of Grozny. The gathering of several hundred demanded the release of "citizens of Chechnya unlawfully detained by the federal forces".