“Counterterrorism Operation” by the
Brief overview by the
2. Conflict Development Background and
History. Chechenization of the Conflict
4. The First Stage of the Conflict -
Nonselective Use of Force
5. Deliberate Attacks on Peaceful Population
6. "Special Operations [zachistka]”
7. Inhuman Treatment of Detained, Arrested
and Kept in Custody Persons
8. “Disappearances” of People. Arbitrary
Executions
9.
Taking Insurgents’ Relatives
Hostage, Repressive Acts against Insurgents’ Relatives
1. Introduction.
Terrorism has become a grave threat in modern
It should be noted, though, that throughout the period of 1996-99, the
heads of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) proved to be unable to ensure
safety and civil rights on the territory under their administration. They
failed to stop brigandage, robbery and hostage taking on the adjacent
territories by the gangs based in the
During all the seven years of confrontation, both parties badly violated
human rights and norms of humanitarian law. However, the number of casualties
among civilians resulting from the actions by the federal center is
considerably higher, while the policy pursued by the federal authorities in the
Northern Caucasus erodes
In this report, we are not going to touch upon the line of action of the
armed formations fighting the federal party or describe numerous acts of
terrorism committed by the adversaries of the
The report briefly describes the line of actions by
2. Background
of the Second Chechen War and History of the Conflict Development.
“Chechenization” of the Conflict.
Initially the ChR conflict was of purely separatist nature. The forces
having come to power in the Republic in 1991 on the crest of the anticommunist
wave advocated complete separation of the
In 1994, the RF leadership started the first Chechen war under the slogan
of “reinstating the constitutional order”. After the August 1996 military
defeat of
During 1996-1999, the situation was inevitably approaching a new
confrontation. The RF leadership was openly preparing to gain revenge. The
leadership of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) failed to cope with the
post-war anarchy. Numerous armed gangs made the
In summer and autumn of 1999, groups of Muslim fundamentalists raided
into the
The period of October 1999 through spring 2000 was the time of the first
stage of war when
By the summer of 2000, the Chechen squadrons were unable to offer open
resistance to the Russian troops and started using guerilla tactics. This
period was characterized by creation of the "filtration" system and
illegal places for holding in custody the detained persons, by the growing
activity of “death squads”, numerous large-scale "special operations"
in towns and villages and, as a whole, by extreme non-selectivity in the
federal troops’ and security structures’ activities.
The year 2003 became a new stage in the conflict – beginning
of the “chechenization”. The RF authorities declared that with the
confrontation being over, the Republic was returning to the RF legal space and
the process of political settlement. In fact, the "settlement" became
a mere facade for the continuing conflict having changed its forms. The
Republican authorities were formed through imitation of elections in the course
of “chechenization”. In the course of conflict “chechenization” during the last
three years, there were formed security structures staffed by local residents,
i.e. ethnic Chechens. Along with the local militia, there have been formed
specialized Chechen formations delegated the "right" to illegal
violence in their fight against insurgents.[3]
These are the forces fighting now against insurgents
and their underworld. At the beginning, the major part of these formations had
no legal status but, by the end of 2006, their overwhelming majority had been
already legalized and formally ranked as a subunit of some federal security
agency. Many of these groups’ members are people with a criminal record; the groups
are organized based on the clan principle and consist of former insurgents
compelled by force or blackmail to join their former adversaries. Their formal
inclusion in the lawful structures has in no way made them act within the law.
During the “chechenization”, the large-scale “special
operations” in towns and villages were replaced with the “targeted special
operations” (kidnappings, actually) organized mainly by the local security
structures (in some cases jointly with the federals). The kidnapped people
simply “disappear”; they are kept in illegal prisons without any court rulings
being coerced to confess to the “committed” crimes. The thus obtained
“confessions” are often used for the invention fabrication of criminal cases.
Up to 40% of the kidnapped persons “disappear” without any traces; sometimes
people find their corpses. The practice of taking hostage of insurgents’ family
members aimed to compel them to surrender has become widely spread.[4]
Thus, the forces undertaking the “CTO” gradually
switched in their actions from extreme non-selectivity to relative selectivity.
However, all these actions are undertaken with gross violations of human rights
in the situation of complete legal vacuum.
It is necessary to note another
characteristic of the “CTO”: with the level of military opposition in the ChR
going down, the armed conflict has started “spilling over” the territory of the
3. Legal
Framework
The legal framework for evaluating the actions of the parties to the
conflict is the international pacts and conventions on human rights;
international humanitarian law;
The military campaign launched in the
To justify their
actions the RF authorities referred to the need to fight against terrorism and
used the term “counterterrorism operation”. However, when characterizing the
events taking place in
There are different opinions regarding the legitimacy
of use of armed forces (weapons and army) in such situations. From our point of
view, the use of armed forces is possible as a matter of principle, but
strictly within the law of the
Under the RF Constitution, the President can impose
the state of emergency in the whole territory of the country or in some of its
regions in order to ensure safety of citizens and protect constitutional order.
The RF law “On the State of Emergency” was approved in
1991, but was used neither in the first nor in the second Chechen campaign.
At first, those who opposed the imposing of the state
of emergency in
Indeed, the Law “On
the State of
It is obvious that the President’s unwillingness to
take advantage of the Law On the State of
Emergency can be explained by the fact that both the former and the current
laws rather clearly and consistently outline the legal aspect of the state of emergency. The law demands that, in
his decrees with regard to the imposing or prolonging of the state of
emergency, the President provide a precise list of the temporarily restricted
rights and freedoms of citizens and identify the state bodies responsible for
the implementation of specific measures in relation to the state of emergency
defining the authority limits of these bodies. The presidential decrees is
subject to approval by the Federation Council. Finally, the law itself imposes
a number of restrictions aimed to avoid arbitrariness in the public officials’
activities.
All this made the executive authorities unhappy. This situation resulted
in the uncontrolled arbitrariness in
-
freedom of movement (the restrictions are
effective even at present, mainly, in the mountainous regions) was de facto cancelled;
- towns,
villages and even the whole ChR territory were blockaded. Russian citizens were
restricted in their opportunity to get to Chechnya during the time of special
operations; people were regularly disallowed to go to and from certain towns
and villages (blockading of communities is presently undertaken only in extreme
cases, access to the Chechnya territory is practically open for Russian
citizens);
-
vehicles on the roads are subject to arbitrary
checking;
-
the curfews were imposed de facto by the orders of commandants, while the authorities
insisted that the there was no curfew but just a kind of "restriction of
movement for vehicles and citizens during certain time” (this kind of
restrictions has been presently cancelled);
-
the vehicles that did not stop on demand were
subject to fire for effect without prior warning;
- the
prosecutors permanently practice unauthorized searches in people’s houses: the
people carrying out such actions do not produce any documents and do not
introduce themselves;
-
offices of commandants having large powers in relation to civilians
have been opened and are still functioning in towns and villages.
To justify this arbitrariness, the federal authorities resort to the
extralegal and broad interpretation of laws having declared the military
conflict a “counterterrorism operation”. Such operations were regulated by the
RF “Law On Struggle Against Terrorism”, which appeared very convenient for the
executive authorities as it allowed to restrict the rights of citizens in the
“zone under the CTO” and involve the RF armed forces (“for the purposes beyond their
intended role”) to perform the CTO without any parliamentary or other kind of
control.
The strict legal analysis shows that under the provisions of the “Law On
Struggle Against Terrorism” the actions undertaken in
Under the “Law On Struggle Against Terrorism”, the CTO could be performed
only in case the acts of terrorism had already taken place or were under
preparation according to the available information.
In spring
Description of a punishable offense provided in paragraph I, art. 205[9] of the RF Criminal Code and in the
“Law On Struggle Against Terrorism” defines terrorism as an action accomplished
“for the purpose of violation of public safety, intimidation of the population
or rendering influence on decision-making by the government authorities”, as
well as potential threat of such actions intended for the same purposes. The
purpose, in this case, is treated as the major constituent element of the act
of terrorism. Lack of such an element presupposes absence of the given crime.
This is the element that makes terrorism different from similar criminal
offences, such as forcible seizure of power, subversive activity, participation
in the informal armed formations, etc.[10]
Thus, only some of the acts by the armed formations’ members resisting
the federal forces in
Thus, the authorities wrongfully used the “convenient” Law on Struggle
against Terrorism intended for the regulation of local and rather limited in
space and time operations, which, respectively, did not contain any clearly
formulated long-term guarantees of human rights protection in the CTO zone. As
a result, the security officials’ actions were practically uncontrolled and
their arbitrariness was in no way restricted.
The lack of precise legal definition of the situation is, in some cases,
to the disadvantage of the security officials. Thus, the commandants’ powers
are ambiguous. Being formally responsible for the assurance of order in the
region, they cannot even have different subunits of the Ministry of Defense
(MD) and the Ministry of Interior inform them about the “special operations”
they undertake in towns and villages.
The legal nihilism
of
4. Non-selective use of force
At the first stage of the second Chechen campaign, during the large-scale
military conflicts, federal troops everywhere resorted to massive and
non-selective bombings and shell attacks. To kill several insurgents, the army
oftentimes sacrifices dozens and hundreds of innocent civilians. Like in the
first Chechen war, the federal forces used armament, which was obviously not
intended for selective targeted killings. Let us take a few examples.
The use of “U-target” assault missiles with cluster warheads stuffed with
pellet bombs used in the center of Groznyy on October 21, 1999, was widely
covered in mass media. One missile exploded in the Central market, which led to
numerous casualties. Two other missiles blew up near the maternity hospital and
the central post office. About one hundred forty persons died and over two
hundred were injured. The overwhelming majority of the killed and wounded
people were innocent civilians.[12]
On October 27, 1999, the Russian TV reported that the
house of the well known Chechen commander and terrorist Shamil Basayev located
in
Air strikes were aimed against vehicles moving along the
roads and any groups of people near the roads. Thus, on October 28,
1999, near the
In none of such cases, none of the responsible military officials was
held criminally liable and no one was punished. Four complaints telling about
the innocent civilians wounded and killed because of the non-selective actions
of the Russian federal forces became matter at issue at the
Thus, Medka Isayeva, Zina
Yusupova and Libkan Bazayeva submitted to the ECHR their complaints against the
actions of
Zara Adamovna Isayeva from the
On October 14, 2004, the ECHR
held public hearings on the above described cases and on February 24, 2005, it
passed decisions in favor of the applicants recognizing
Regarding the blows brought onto the column of
refugees in the village of Shaami-Yurt, the ECHR was ready to recognize that if
the planes had been attacked by the illegal armed formations
(as the Russian party insisted) the use of the lethal force might have
been justifiable. However, even in the case like this, it was obvious that the
“army had used extremely powerful weapon for the achievement of its purposes
and all the people being at this moment on the road were exposed to mortal
danger. <…> The Court cannot agree that the operation at the
As to the blockade and fire attack of the village
of Katyr-Yurt, from the ECHR decision it follows that the military operation
commanders had not undertaken necessary actions to notify the civilians
regarding the forthcoming fire attack of the village and had not provided them
with the opportunity to leave the village before the firing, while the operation
had been planned in such a manner that human
losses were unavoidable. From the materials of the criminal case presented to
the Court by the Russian party, it follows that generals V. Shamanov and Ya.
Nedobitko were responsible for the planning and direct command of the
operation. At present, the military procuracy organs have resumed the
investigation of the criminal cases on the facts of civilians’ death at the
Besides the rulings of the ECHR with regard to the
RF disproportionate and non-selective use of force and failure to take
necessary measures in order to protect innocent civilians, the Court
specifically emphasizes that no effective investigation of these tragic cases
has been undertaken: “The Court was amazed by the series of serious and
inexplicable omissions and inactivity of investigatory bodies”.
In the decisions on the “Chechen” cases[20]
the ECHR in no way challenged the legitimacy of struggle against informal armed
formations and repeatedly stated its understanding of the difficulties
inevitably confronted by the state when counteracting the armed separatism: “The situation that took place in Chechnya
at that time demanded that the state undertake exclusive measures to resume its
control of the republic and to suppress
illegal armed hostilities of the insurgents”.[21]
At the same time, the Court insisted on the necessary protection of the
rights and interests of innocent civilians.
Large-scale armed conflicts had stopped by the summer of 2000; however,
federal forces continued, although in rarer cases, using non-selective attacks
in towns and villages. Here are some of the examples of different years.
On the night of October 10-11, 2001, the
On the night of November 8-9, 2001, after the attack by insurgents on the
reconnaissance group of the armed forces, residential quarters in the town of
On August 20, 2003, the
On October 2, 2003, at midday, apartment houses in the streets
Tsentralnaya and Sadovaya, the
On April 8, 2004, the far away farm of Rigakhoy located high in the
mountains, Vedensky district, was exposed to air strike; the bomb fell onto the
house of Imar-Ali Damayev. Practically the whole family died: wife – Maidat
Kudusovna Tsintsayeva, born in 1975; children – Djanacy, 1999, Zharadat, 2000,
Umar-Haji, 2002, Zara, 2003, Zura, 2003.[22]
The family of Kagermanovs, village of Serzhen-Yurt, Shalinsky district,
was killed on June 26, 2004, because of direct hit in their house of the
artillery shell: Lema Vakhayevich, 1955, his wife Rashana, 1963, daughters
Kheda, 1986, and Zhamilya, 1987.
On December 3, 2004, the small
Sometimes,
the firings of communities were deliberate.
Thus, on January 14, 2005, helicopters bombed and missile-struck the
More often, such firings are a result of
errors, negligence or drunkenness. The army sometimes pays the victims some
money for the caused damage; several military men were put on probation.
On September 27, 2005, at
On November 9, 2005, at
Recently, villages in mountainous regions of the Republic have also
become exposed to firings from the air.
On December 1, 2006, about 13.30 two missiles
launched from the battle-plane hit the home house belonging to the family of
Gaytemirovs on the farm of Surokh, Shatoysky district; Roza Akhilgova, 1962,
Alikhan Gaytamirov, 1990, and Adlan Gaytamirov, 1988, as well as 22-year-old
Zalpa Akhilgova were wounded. The employees of the military procuracy assured
the head of the family Umar Gaytemirov that before the beginning of 2007 he
would be paid 97 thousand rubles as indemnification for the damage of his house
and premises. After the New Year, Alikhan and Adlan was promised to be paid 100
thousand rubles as compensation for the caused physical harm, while Roza and
Zalpa were not eligible for any compensation because the family, ostensibly, could not receive more
than 200 thousand rubles.[23]
5. Deliberate Attacks on Peaceful Population
Quite often actions of the military could be characterized as
demonstration of retaliation aimed against civilians. It could be artillery
firing of residential quarters, kidnapping of locals, mass robberies, etc.
Actually, one can speak about acts of terror against peaceful population
Here are some examples from different periods of the “CTO”.
On November 21,
On December 11, 2000, near the
On March 15, 2001, after the mining of the Russian armored vehicle near
the
On October 16, 2001, on the road near the village of the Duba-Yurt, field
engineers found land mines. After that, the village was exposed to small arms
and mortar firing. The firing resulted in wounding of a woman and her
five-year-old daughter who later on died in the hospital.
On November 29,
On January 8,
On February 12, 2002, Russian armored vehicle was mined near the
On May 14, 2003, an act of terrorism took place in the
No one has ever been punished for such “acts of retaliation”.
Oftentimes, the whole villages were exposed to “special operations” as
measure of retaliation.
6. "Special Operations [zachistka]”
The slang word “zachistka” is used both by the representatives of federal
forces and by the local residents. It designates an operation when a village or
town is blocked and, without any sanction from the public prosecutor or any
witnesses, soldiers search houses one after another and detain all suspicious
people. Officially “zachistka” is called a “special operation aimed to check
people’s residence permits and identify participants of illegal armed
formations”.
No legislative instruments regulate such special operations. Moreover,
continuous searches in people’s homes without any sanctions from public
prosecutors, arbitrary detentions of people, holding them in the places that
are not stipulated by the law directly contravene the RF legislation.
All this is aggravated by frequent cases of violence against local
residents - beatings and robberies that take place during such “zachistkas”.
Quite often “zachistkas” entailed murders of innocent civilians, tortures and
“disappearance” of the arrested persons. The examples of such “zachistkas” are
numerous.
The “zachistkas” in the
Thus, in Novy-Aldy and the adjacent district of the city of
Applications by the relatives of the innocent civilians from
Staropromyslovsky district arbitrarily executed during the “zachistka” in
January 2000 were submitted to the ECHR (the case of “Magomed Hashiyev and Roza Akayeva versus
On February 24, 2005, the Court passed a decision on the case. The RF was found guilty of the violation of art. 2 (right
to life), art. 3 (torture ban) and art. 13 (right to effective national
protection) of the ECPHRFF.
In the summer of 2000, large-scale battle actions were replaced with
guerilla warfare; “zachistkas” started being used more often and, like before,
were accompanied with cruelty, violence and robberies.[25]
Mass non-selective detentions of local residents became an important
distinctive feature of many “zachistkas” throughout 2000-2003. The detained
persons were taken to the “temporary filtration points” (“FPs”, for more
details see chapter … ), where they were subjected to beatings and tortures. Such
was the way used by the federal forces trying to obtain information on the
people from the village supporting insurgents and hiding weapons. At the same
time, they formed a network of secret informants.
The robberies accompanying these “special actions” became of organized
nature – property was sometimes openly taken out of the houses by military
trucks.
Local residents repeatedly submitted complaints to the organs of the
Prosecutor’s Office, commandants, offices of the Ministry of Interior, the RF President,
etc. Heads of administrations of numerous Chechen villages and towns also filed
complaints regarding the actions by the employees of security agencies during
“zachistka”.
One cannot say that federal authorities did not respond to this kind of
complaints.
On May 24, 2001, Commander of the Coalition Task Force in the
In June-July,
These actions were broadly covered both in
However, the “zachistkas” that followed after the
issuance of order No
At last, in 2002, the employees of the Prosecutor’s
Office really started attending the “zachistkas”. However, the presence of one
or several prosecutors during these special operations with dozens and hundreds
of security officers involved could not mend the situation dramatically. Those
of the public prosecutors who tried to stop the crimes often encountered
resistance of the military.
The employees of the military and law enforcement bodies
never introduced themselves when entering the houses during the special
operations, their faces being masked. The armored personnel carriers that
brought these employees either had no license plates or their plates were
purposely mudded or painted. Therefore, it was difficult to identify after the
“zachistka” who was responsible for the operation.
The legal rights organizations tried to insist that the
federal army commanders in
·
the body sides of all the armored vehicles should
necessarily have license plates;
·
when holding special operations in towns and
villages, the senior officer of each group of federal soldiers should introduce
himself when entering a house or premise and produce his documents;
·
upon termination of the special operation, the
official responsible for the operation should by all means provide to the head
of the town or village administration a complete and exhaustive list of names
of all the persons detained during the operation with indication of the reason
for their detention and the place where these people will be delivered.
Finally, on March 27, 2002, before the discussion of the
issue related to Chechnya in the UN Commission for Human Rights, the Coalition Task Force general Moltenskoy issued order No 80 through
which he obliged his subordinates to follow the aforementioned elementary norms
of the law. However, this order was practically never executed.
Here are just two examples:
“Zachistka” in the
Eighteen persons from those arrested simply
“disappeared”. Fragments of the other three blown up bodies were found by the
locals near the FP. The Prosecutor’s Office admits that the “disappeared ones”
were detained by the security officers:[26] “During
the special operation of 21.06, 2002, unrecognized persons took away to the FP
Ortsuyev Islam Abdulayevich, born in 1980. The latter was taken away from his
home at 157 Lenin str., village of Mesker-Yurt
in pretence of the need to check the documents and tracklessly
disappeared.” Such are the statements used in relation to 21 persons.
Criminal cases on the facts of their “disappearance” had been initiated but the
investigation was later on suspended due to the “impossibility to identify the persons to be
charged of the crime”.
On August 16, 2002, Russian armored troop carrier was
mined and several soldiers wounded at the outskirts of the
At the beginning of November 2002, the RF President
declared that no broad-scale special operations should be any more held in the
ChR towns and villages. After that, the number of large-scale “zachistkas” in
Chechen towns and villages started gradually going down and decreased sharply
after the summer of 2003. Nevertheless, large-scale special operations
continued being held, although much rarer than before.
For example, 27 special
operations were held in
Sometimes, special operations
were held only by the ChR Ministry of Interior units, sometimes – jointly with
the federal military forces; there were cases when “zachistkas” were performed
by the federal forces independently.
Order No 80 was practically
never executed in full.
Some of its provisions were
observed only in some cases. However, when holding searches of the houses and
courtyards, senior officers of militia or military groups practically never
introduce or identify themselves. They usually do not present the lists of
arrested persons to the heads of local governments.
Unlike the period of 2000,
the most outrageous violations of order No 80 have been taking place not during
“zachistkas” but in the course of targeted local operations in the towns and
villages starting with the first half of 2003 until nowadays.
During the ChR presidential
election campaign in July 2004, an attempt was made to reanimate order No 80.
The ChR officials repeatedly insisted that the order is equally effective for
the troops of the RF Ìinistry of Defence, the RF Ministry of Interior and for
the employees of the ChR Ministry of Interior.
On July 16, the ChR Deputy
Minister of Interior, militia colonel Akhmed Dakayev declared that “Provisions of order No 80 by the Commander
of the Coalition Task Force in the Northern Caucasus are coming back into
effect. Under this order, all the movements of armored vehicles and military
groups about the Republic should be made under the control of commandants of
towns and rural districts… The regulation of the special operations procedure
is due to the having become more frequent cases of kidnappings in the
Republic.”
Alu Alkhanov, major candidate for presidency, declared
that “the matter in question is not the prohibition against detention of
criminals, but the need to do it legally, and, most importantly, providing information as to who has detained
this or that person and where this person is at the given moment”. However,
later the ChR officials mainly concentrated on the observance of the
instruction that during special operations the employees of the Ministry of
Interior should not mask their faces.
In 2004 – 2006, not only the
number of “zachistkas” went down but also the scale of human rights violations
during the special operations was usually much lower than before.
Nevertheless, the level of cruelty during some of the
“later zachistkas” could be compared with those of the worst times.
On January 14,
The events having taken place in the
The Prosecutor’s Office initiated criminal case No
34/00/0013-05 on the facts of arsons, murders and kidnappings, a special joint
investigatory group visited the scene of operation. However, the weapon was
seized from soldiers of the “Vostok” battalion to carry out a ballistic
examination only several months after the episode. One and a half year later
the investigation is not yet completed, the fate of the kidnapped villagers of
Borozdinskaya has not been established, nobody has been held criminally liable
for kidnappings, murders and tortures. One officer of the battalion, Mukhadi
Aziyev, was put on probation in October 2005 “for abuse of power” as he had
permitted his soldiers enter the village. What these soldiers were doing in the
village, who of them killed and set on fire the houses taking away the people
has not been established in the course of investigation.
Some time after these events, the
commander of the “Vostok” battalion Sulim Yamadayev was awarded with the
honorable Russian medal of “Hero of Russia”.
7. Inhuman
Treatment of Detained, Arrested and Kept in Custody Persons
In this relation, both parties to the conflict violated and continue
violating human rights and norms of the humanitarian law.
Estimating the actions of the federal party in this respect, we should
speak about the system of mass violence created in the
7.1. Filtration
System.
From February 2000,
mass media started reporting about the situation in the “filtration points”
(FPs) created by the federal forces in the
The key task of the
“filtration system” was to identify and isolate participants of armed
formations resisting federal forces and their supporters. However, it is
obvious that the same system was aimed to resolve broader issues – it was used
for creation of the network of informers recruited from among the local
population and, along with other actions by the federal forces, for terror,
suppression and intimidation of all the people disloyal to the regime in
The major
characteristic of the “filtration system” was its non-selectivity. Lack of
systematized data on the participants of armed formations resulted in mass
detentions of innocent people, while their confession of the crime could be the
only accusatory evidence against them. Obtainment of the confession was
possible only through intimidation, beatings and tortures.
The
word-combination “filtration point” (FP) appeared during the first Chechen war
of 1994-1996 as the official name of the places for holding the detained
persons in the ChR territory, although their legal status was not certain and
creation – illegal.
In contrast to
this, during the second Chechen war (the so-called “CTO”) some of the
“filtration system” facilities got legitimate statuses of investigative
isolators (SIZO) subordinated to the RF Ministry of Justice and temporary
detention isolators (IVS) subordinated to the RF Ministry of Interior.
The Chernokozovo FP
was created at the end of 1999 and, at the
beginning, it had the status of “temporary reception center for the persons
detained on the grounds of vagrancy and begging”.[27] The
status of “reception center” was convenient for the Ministry of Interior as
such facilities, unlike the SIZO, are fully subordinated to militia, while the
people delivered there without any charges can be held for much longer periods
than in the IVS. The people delivered to the Chernokozovo “reception center”
were anyone but vagabonds; those were all kinds of “suspicious persons”
including the persons detained during “zachistka” in their own homes. In the
winter of 2000, journalist Andrey Babitsky was delivered there and became a
witness of the atrocities taking place there.
FPs were created
during 2000-2002 at the outskirts of the towns and villages in the course of
numerous “zachistkas”, where the employees of the Ministry of Defense, Ministry
of Interior and internal security structures delivered the detained persons.
There, they “checked” tens and even hundreds of local residents as to their
belonging to the illegal armed formations. Based on the results of this check,
the detained persons had to be either released or transferred to other
penitentiary facilities. The group of soldiers performing the “zachistka”
usually set up a camp at the outskirts of the town or village, while the FP was
located nearby, in the open field or in the abandoned premises.[28] As
one of the basic characteristics of “zachistkas” in the period of 2000 – 2003
was mass nature and non-selectivity of detentions, the number of detained
people exceeded the capacity of the “regular” detention places and majority of
these people were soon released, as a rule. Nevertheless, practically all those
held in the FPs were exposed to beatings and tortures, while some of them
“disappeared” during numerous special operations. Tortures with electric
current using field phone wire were widely spread.
The legal status of such FPs within effective Russian
legislation is absolutely unclear. The current normative acts regulating the
activity of detention facilities, places where the persons are held in custody
or other forms of forcible restriction of citizens’ physical freedom contain no
such concept as “FP”.[29]
Besides temporary FPs, there also existed regular,
long-term facilities, one of them named by the military “Titanic”, which was
located between the villages of Alleroy and Tsentoroy, wherefrom people used to
“disappear” as well. Thus, the cousins of Alsultanovs – Magomed-Emin Soipovich
and Khan-Ali-Imaliyevich detained by the federal forces in the
Some people from the temporary and
regular FPs were released, while those whom the military found necessary “to
continue working with” were either transferred to the official detention
facilities, i.e. IVSs created within the district Temporary Departments of the Ministry of Interior
(VOVD),[31]
and SIZO or to illegal prisons. However, as it was already mentioned before,
some of the people died in the FPs.
Besides, from the very beginning of the holding of “CTO”
in
Employees of the Prosecutor’s Office and of the Chechen
Civil Administration, as well as of the Office of the Special Representative of
the President of the RF for ensuring human and civil rights and freedoms in the
The situation in
such "filtration facilities" could change both for the better and for
the worse.
In the late winter
of 2000, after the publicizing of evidence related to tortures and beatings of
the people kept in Chernokozovo “reception center” and protests by the
international public, the Russian authorities quickly changed the status of
this FP turning it into SIZO. After that, life conditions there improved
notably although the use of tortures continued. During the period of 2000 –
2002, the temporary isolator functioning within the Ministry of Interior
Departments in Urus-Martan and Oktabrsky district of the city of
Later, when Russian
and foreign public focused its attention on the events taking place in the
temporary isolators, violence, cruelty, tortures and arbitrary executions were
transferred to the informal detention places (for example, in Khankala) or to
the quasi-legal places of close custody.[32]
The exact number of
the people having passed through the filtration system is impossible to be
identified – those are thousands of citizens.
When asked about
the number of detentions and arrests, the official structures usually give as
statistics to the press and public the number of persons having gone through
the SIZO in Chernokozovo and now in Groznyy – these are about ten thousand.
However, the real
number of the persons detained and arrested in
However,
during each “zachistka” the majority of the people having been delivered to the
temporary FPs were not registered. Only some of those who, for some reason,
interested the “competent bodies” during the “filtration” became officially
registered as detained persons.
Here should be also
added the people held in the territory of military units’ deployment.
Thus, by the most modest estimations, the overall number of those
having passed through the “filtration system” reaches 200 thousand. For
7.2. Illegal Prisons
Today
From the end of 2003, the number of mass “zachistkas” in
One of places where the
detained and kidnapped persons are illegally held is located in the
Apparently, it was here
that the relatives of the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
A.Mashadov had been held for half a year. They were forcibly taken away from
their homes in unknown direction on
December 3 and 28, 2004. Both the circumstances of this kidnapping and the
evidence of the witnesses specified that the kidnappers were the “Kadyrovists”.
With significant delay and after scandalous publicity, the Public Prosecutor’s
Office initiated a criminal case on the fact of kidnapping. However, for more
than six months there was no news regarding the fate of the kidnapped persons.
On May 31, 2005, almost three months after Maskhadov's death, all the kidnapped
relatives were released. According to the released persons, all this time they
had been held all together in the concrete cell without any furniture, its
floor space being three by three meters. Under the ceiling, there was a small
grilled window. They had not been accused of anything or interrogated being
allowed to leave the cell only to go to the bathroom. The kidnapped people
noticed that the place where they had been held was located on rather big
fenced territory. There were many armed people speaking mainly Chechen. On May
30, there came a person in civilian clothing to their cell and announced that
they were free. The same day, for the first time in the course of five months,
they were allowed to take a bath. Next morning, the kidnapped, with their eyes
blindfolded, were taken home. On July 27, 2005, the Deputy Prosecutor General
of the Russian Federation N.I. Shepel declared,[33]
that “Maskhadov's relatives were set free
as a result of a special operation”. At the same time, he said that “the
kidnappers had not been identified”. The investigation of the criminal case on
the fact of kidnapping of seven relatives of Maskhadov was suspended due to “the impossibility to identify the persons to
be held liable as accused of the kidnapping”.
There is a lot of evidence by the people saying that they themselves or
their relatives were held in the illegal prison in Tsentsaroy and that the
people there are exposed to tortures and beatings.
Illegal prisons exist in other places as well. Usually, these are the
places where the of security structures units are deployed. At present, these
are most often the structures referred to the so-called “Kadyrovists”.[34]
The quasi-legal detention place in the city of
7.3. Torture
Methods of cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment and torture are practiced everywhere in the ChR both
when detaining suspects and when holding them in detention facilities, as well
as during interrogations. Not only the detained but also their relatives,
friends and even mere strangers who simply happen to be near them become
objects for cruel treatment during apprehensions and arrests. Constant
“disappearances” of the people detained by the employees of different security
agencies, torture of the people who “disappear” in this manner, as well as the
deeply rooted in the Republic and directly connected with these most serious
violations of human rights corruption create a specific atmosphere of impunity
and lawlessness on all the levels of society and authority. As a result,
8. "Disappearances"
of People. Arbitrary Executions
People in
From the first days of the military operation in
Chechnya, the relatives of the persons detained by soldiers or employees of the
Ministry of Interior or of the RF FSB [Federal Security Service] for a long
time could find out nothing as to the reason for the detention, the place where
they were held or whether had been charged, etc. The same practice is nowadays
used by different pro-Moscow Chechen formations created in the process of conflict
“chechenization”.
On the website of
the
The
Only for the period of 2002 through September 2006, i.e.
the period when the federal forces switched from large-scale “zachistkas” to
the “targeted operations” and to the conflict “chechenization” the
Based on the
extrapolation of these data and analysis of the communiqués, the Center
of “Memorial” insists that throughout the whole period of the holding of “CTO”,
the number of the persons “having disappeared” through kidnapping, illegal
detentions, and apprehensions is, for
sure, within three to five thousand. Unfortunately, it is meanwhile
impossible to get a more exact figure.
At the same time, we can state the decreasing dynamics
in the number of kidnappings fixed by the Center of “Memorial”: 539 – in 2002;
497 – in 2003; 448 – in 2004; 320 – in 2005 and 172 – in 2006.[39]
Kidnappings in the ChR
territory according to the data of the
|
Year |
Kidnapped |
Including those
released or ransomed |
Including those found killed |
Including those
who disappeared |
Including those
under examination |
|
2002 |
539 |
90 |
81 |
368 |
|
|
2003 |
497 |
157 |
52 |
288 |
|
|
2004 |
448 |
213 |
24 |
203 |
8 |
|
2005 |
320 |
154 |
24 |
127 |
15 |
|
2006 |
172 |
86 |
9 |
60 |
17 |
|
Total: |
1976 |
700 |
190 |
1046 |
40 |
Decrease in the number of kidnappings fixed by human
rights advocates is due, to a great extent, to the “chechenization” of the military conflict and “latent violence” prevailing in the ChR, which is not fixed
either by human rights advocates or, particularly, by law enforcement bodies.
One cannot state for sure how much the total number of kidnappings has changed.
However, one thing is clear – the methods of carrying out the “CTO” have
definitely changed: The majority of kidnappings are undertaken by the local security
agencies that do not necessarily need to kill people in order to achieve their
goals. Quite often, the kidnapped persons spend some time, from one to several
days, in illegal detention facilities, where they are beaten and tortured in
order to force data. On the other hand, relatives of the kidnapped persons
independently undertake efforts, oftentimes through ransom, in order to have
their kidnapped relatives released. After the ransom of the kidnapped person,
usually neither this person nor the family complain anywhere or provide
information in relation to kidnapping, being afraid of retribution of the
kidnappers who, unlike federal soldiers, are well informed about kinship and
weak points of their victims.
During the last few years, the share of the
“disappeared” or killed from the overall number of those kidnapped has
decreased. Throughout the period of 2001-2002, their number made about 85% of
those kidnapped during mass-scale “zachistkas”. It is obvious that the major
responsibility for these crimes is with the soldiers, militiamen and employees
of special security agencies. Throughout the process of “chichenization” one
could note gradual decrease in the percentage of those “disappeared” or killed
versus the overall number of the kidnapped making about 50% in 2004-2005 and
about 40% at present.
During the last few years there were registered cases
when the kidnapped “were found” after a while in SIZO or temporary isolators.
They are accused of the crimes related to “terrorism” as provided in art. 205),
of the RF Criminal Code, of “participation in illegal armed formations” (art.
208) and of “illegal keeping of weapon” (art. 222). This is probably the way
the employees of security agencies try to fulfill the plan on capturing
insurgents and disclosing crimes.
People are kidnapped not only in the ChR territory, but
also in the territories of adjoining regions.
As opposed to
The events having taken place in the
It should be noted that besides kidnappings that are
carried out by “Kadyrovists”, “Yamadayevists” and other security structures of
the Republic, there still take place the facts of kidnappings by federal
security officers.
Throughout the period of holding of “CTO”, local
residents repeatedly found secret burial dumps of the people kidnapped earlier
by the state security structures.
Here is just one example.
In February
All people, whose corpses were found in the garden
suburb of "Zdorovye" became victims of extra-judicial executions: The
majority of them had their throats cut, hands tied, control shots made in the
heads.
24 corpses were identified by the relatives. All of them had been earlier
detained by the representatives of federal forces on the block-posts during
“zachistkas” and so on.
Among those killed, for example, there was found the body of Nara
Luluyeva and her two cousin sisters. According to the relatives, they had been
detained on June 3, 2000 at the market in Groznyy by the Russian soldiers who
had taken them away in the armored troop carrier and then “disappeared”.
The complaint of Nura Luluyeva’s relatives (“Luluyev and others versus
In the burial dumping at the military base of Khankala,[42]
there were corpses of the people who had been detained at different periods of
times and in different places of the ChR, which proves a regular and organized
nature of the actions undertaken by the murderers and kidnappers. We can
positively insist that there were and are “death squads” in the ChR – criminal
communities existing inside the state security agencies that are protected in
their operation by the highest rank military, militia and political officials.
The ECHR has examined another two complaints with regard
to the “disappearances” of the persons detained by the Russian state
representatives. In both of these cases,
The decision on the case of “Bazorkin versus
The case of “Imakayeva versus
9. Taking Insurgents’ Relatives Hostage, Repressive
Acts against Insurgents’ Relatives
Such methods of carrying out the “CTO” were used from the end of 2001.
However, this practice became of systematic nature with the further development
of the conflict “chechenization”. In 2004, with participation, support and
cover up of the federal center, the earlier practiced sporadic cases of hostage
taking, arsons and demolition of houses, murders and other forms of repressive
actions in relation to the family members of suspected insurgents became systematic.
If in former times, repressive actions in relation to the combatants’ families
were either revenge or an attempt to obtain from the relatives information
about the insurgents offering resistance; now these methods have become tactics
to render pressure upon insurgents with the purpose to force them to surrender.
The kidnappings described earlier, as well as keeping in illegal prisons of the
relatives of Aslan Maskhadov is an element of this widespread practice and such
examples are numerous.[43]
Prosecutions of insurgents’ relatives go beyond hostage taking practice.
One of the most known recent cases of this kind is kidnapping and
“disappearance” of Elina Ersenoyeva. On August 17,
Two days before the kidnapping, Elina applied to the International
Helsinki Federation and the Center of “Demos” with a request for help. She
wrote that local security structures (“Kadyrovists”, as she specified) had been
persecuting her and her family for some time and explained that this pressure
was due to the fact that in November 2005 she had married a man who appeared to
be an insurgent and who was killed in the summer of 2006. On August 23, it
became known that Ersenoyeva was wife of Shamil Basayev ( the sources close to
Elina say that the marriage was not voluntary). At the end of August 2006, the
ChR Prosecutor’s Office initiated a criminal case on the fact of Ersenoyeva’s
kidnapping. Elina’s whereabouts and fate have not yet been established.[44]
According to informal sources, in the middle of October 2006 she was still
alive and was held in one of the “secret” prisons.
Elina Ersenoyeva’s mother, Rita (Margarita) Ersenoyeva (born in 1958)
took active efforts to find her daughter. Hoping that publicity would help to
have her daughter released, Rita willingly met with Russian and western
journalists and representatives of legal rights organizations. On October 2,
2006, Rita Ersenoyeva “disappeared” and there are strong reasons to suspect
that she had been kidnapped. That day Rita came to see her mother Lipa
Barzukayeva, 65, living in the
10. Impunity of Perpetrators
In all the ECHR decisions in relation to the complaints of the ChR
citizens, it is specified that no effective investigation was undertaken on the
national level in relation to the applicants’ complaints.
The situation with investigation of
crimes against civilian population in the conflict zone can be called
“selective impunity”. The crimes committed by insurgents are investigated with
severe sentences passed upon the accused, whereas regarding the crimes
committed by the state representatives everything is much more complicated.
In the majority of the crimes
against innocent civilians known to the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial”, the
organs of the Public Prosecutor’s Office initiated criminal cases although,
quite often, such criminal cases were closed despite of the fact that all the
constituent elements of the crime were evident.
From the end of 1999, the overall
number of criminal cases initiated against the security structures
representatives who had supposedly (based on the available facts) committed
crimes against civilians was over two thousand. However, only a minor part of
these cases were transferred to the military procuracy, while the investigation
of their absolute majority has been suspended in the territorial Office of the
ChR Public Prosecutor “due to the
non-identification of the persons to be
held liable as the accused.”
The official statistics is
inconsistent and obviously falsified. In February 2003, the RF Deputy
Prosecutor General S.N. Fridinsky reported[46]
that “throughout the period of the holding of CTO, the organs of the ChR Prosecutor’s
Office had investigated 417 criminal cases on the crimes supposedly committed
against local population by the representatives of federal forces”. This
number included 341 cases (82%), the investigation of which had been suspended
by that moment “due to the
non-identification of the persons to be held liable…”. In August 2004, the
same Fredinsky answered the identically formulated question,[47]
“Throughout the whole period of the holding
of the CTO in the ChR territory, the organs of the Public Prosecutor’s Office
had initiated 132 criminal cases based on the facts of crimes committed against
local population by the representatives of federal forces,” including ten
criminal cases the investigation of which had been suspended. Finally, in May
2005, the RF Deputy Prosecutor General N.I. Shepel said[48]
that “throughout the whole period of the
holding of the CTO in the ChR territory, there have been initiated by the
organs of ChR Prosecutor's Office 143
criminal cases that were committed, according to the available information by representatives
of federal forces”.
Proceeding from the data collected
by the
The response by Shepel quoted
earlier mentioned that throughout the period of 2000 – April of 2005, “the organs of the ChR Prosecutor’s Office
initiated 2197 criminal cases on the facts of crimes committed by the members
of illegal armed formation against civilians, local authorities and
administrations, as well as representatives of federal forces”.
Lately, when responding to the
inquiries in relation to kidnappings made by the
However, even in case of initiated
criminal cases, no specific military officials or representatives of other
security agencies are held criminally liable, while the cases, as it has been
specified above, are discontinued. For example, investigation of not less than
three forth (¾) of all criminal
cases initiated in relation to the crimes that became known to the Center of
“Memorial” have already been suspended.
The cases regarding the
“disappearances” of apprehended or arrested persons remain practically always
uninvestigated.
We have some data in relation to the
total number of federal forces’ representatives having been convicted on the
charges of crimes against civilians in
Only 27 military men, the majority
of them having killed innocent civilians during their off-hours have been
convicted by courts to different terms of imprisonment (from one year of labor
settlement to eighteen years of maximum-security imprisonment).
The absolute majority of the
convicted got “symbolic” punishments: conditional sentences (including for
rapes, robberies, extortion, torture of the illegally detained persons, thefts,
deliberate destruction of property, etc.), fines (for beating, unlawful
apprehension of Prosecutor’s Office representatives, etc.), restrictions on the
army service.
By the middle of 2005, 34 militiamen
were convicted for the crimes against civilians. Due to their being military
men, their conviction is of a “symbolic” nature. Only 7 militiamen were
convicted to real terms of imprisonment. The others received conditional
imprisonment (including for shooting in the state of intoxication with civilians
killed or wounded, for extortion, taking bribes, threats to kill, hooliganism,
etc.).
Not a single of the known episodes
of mass killings of civilian persons by the federal forces in Staropromyslovsky
district of Groznyy, Alkhan-Yurt and Novye Aldy has been fully investigated.
None of the criminal cases on the
facts of revealed mass graves has been investigated.
Paragraph 94
of the RF Fourth Periodic Report on the implementation of the Convention
against Tortures presented for consideration at the session of the UN Committee
against Tortures in November 2006, provides data on the number of investigated
and submitted to the courts criminal cases related to kidnappings. It is
reported that, “51 criminal case on 78
episodes have been taken to court throughout the period of holding of the CTO,
84 persons have been convicted”. These figures are insignificant even
against the background of the official and very much understated statistics of
“disappearances”. Secondly, only two representatives of the federal security
structures have been convicted for kidnapping throughout the whole period of
the second Chechen war: colonel Yuri Budanov and militiaman from Hunty-Mansiysk
Autonomous Okrug Sergey Lapin. At the same time, art. 126 of the RF Criminal
Code (“kidnapping”) was referred to in the verdict to Budanov having kidnapped
and cruelly killed Chechen girl Elza Kungayeva in March 2000. Lapin’s verdict
contains no reference to art. 126, although he was actually convicted for
kidnapping in January 2001. Zelimkhan Murdalov was tortured in the Oktyabrsky
VOVD and then “disappeared”. There are no other cases related to kidnapping
with any names of security structures’ employees mentioned. On the other hand,
the figures provided in the report refer to the cases with the accused being
the participants of armed formations offering resistance to federal forces and
criminal elements.
Impunity is no less obvious in the cases of
investigations related to tortures and excess of power. Even in the rare cases
when the victim of tortures is ready to openly give evidence and the tortures’
names are known, the investigation may be suspended, for example, due to “the
impossibility to establish the location of the suspect", although in most
cases they do not even try to abscond.[50]
[1] The
Hasavyurt Agreement of August 1996 and
[2] Official
leaders of the ChR represented by Mashadov censured this invasion
[3] The
biggest pro-federalist security structure consisting of ethnic Chechens is
subordinated to R. Kadyrov. It consists of numerous units scattered all over
[4] The details about “chechenization” of the conflict
can be found in the reports by the Legal Rights
Centers “The Chechen Republic: Consequences of “Chechenization” of the conflict, March 2006”; “In a Climate of Fear: “Political
Process” and Parliamentary Elections in
[5] You can find this in the Report by the
[6] The first Chechen war campaign of 1994-96 was euphemistically defined as “disarmament of
illegal bandit formations” and “restoration of constitutional order” without
any legal reasoning provided. On July 31,
1995, the
[7] The relevant law on defense emergency (law on state of
war) was adopted in 2002 only.
[8] For details, please see the report “State Governance
as an Antiterrorist Operation” , submitted by
[9] Art. 205 of the RF Criminal Code was amended in July
2006.
[10] Thus, the armed rebellion is undertaken not
for the purpose of violating public security or for the purpose of population
intimidation, but “for the purpose of
overthrowing or forcible change of the constitutional order of the
[11] Absolute majority of the captured militants
are accused under art. 208 of the RF Criminal Code (Organization of an
Illegal Armed Formation or Participation in It) rather than under art. 205
(Terrorism – until July 2006, and Terrorist Act – as of July 2006 to the
present).
[12]This case, as well as some other examples of
non-selective bomb and missile attacks was described in detail in the Report by
the
[13] Basayev's house was destroyed, four militants
were killed, Basayev himself remained safe.
[14] There were destroyed not less than five
two-storey 12-apartment houses, one five-storey block of apartments and a lot
of one-floor private houses; the market and the taxi stand together with the
cars were ruined; drivers and passengers were killed.
[15] That time Medka Isayeva’s two children and
daughter-in-law were killed, she herself was wounded. Zina Yusupova was badly
wounded. Libkan Bazayeva complained of moral damage and destruction of the
property belonging to her family.
[16] The exit of the people and vehicles form
[17] Zara
Isayeva lost her son and three nephews during the bombing and gunfire in the
[18] Such
was the information provided to the correspondents of the 1st and 2nd TV
channels of Russian television by the officers responsible for this operation
and, first of all, by major-general V. Shamanov, commander of the “Zapad” army
group
[19] Art. 1 of
the Protocol to the ECPHRFF (protection of property) was also found violated in
the case of L. Bazayeva
[20] Like in
the cases of
[21] Decisions
on the cases of Isayeva, Bazayeva and Yusupova.
[22] Those
guilty were not punished.
The military procuracy closed the case on the
ground that the house had been destroyed and people killed due to the actuation
of the improvised explosive device.
[23] This
statements does not correspond to the reality. The Gaytemirovs
are relatives of Imar-ali Domayev whose wife and five children were killed on
the farm of Rigakhoy on April 8, 2004.
[24] Three
of them are presently living in the
[25] See, for example the report by
the
[26] Response of the ChR
Prosecutor’s Office to the inquiry made by the
[27] Order
of the RF Minister of Interior V. Rushaylo No 1077 from 22.12. 1999
[28] The
“filtration point” in the town of
[29] The
word combination of “filtration point” that the representatives of the federal
forces in
[30] Response by the Deputy Prosecutor of the Argun
Inter-District Prosecutor’s Office R. Tishin No 117 from February 12. 2002, to
the inquiry by the
[31] “VOVD” is a structure within the RF Ministry of Interior
performing, actually the functions of District Departments of the Ministry of
Interior (ROVD) in the ChR territory.
The VOVD officers are militiamen sent to work in
[32] First
of all, within the Bureau No 2 for Operative Investigation in the city of
[33] At the
conference devoted to the issue of “Strengthening of Law Enforcement Bodies for
Maintaining Law and Order in the
[34] See the
details in, for example, in the report by the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial”
and the International Federation for Human Rights, “Torture in Chechnya: ‘Normalization’
of a Nightmare”) from 2006.
[35] For
details, see the chapter “Issues of Tortures and Inhuman Treatment in Chechnya
and Northern Caucuses” prepared by the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial” and
Center of “Demos” to be found in the Russia’s NGOs’ Alternative Report on the
RF Compliance with the UN Convention against Torture presented at the 37
session of the UN Committee against Torture in autumn 2006
(http://www.demos-center.ru/projects/6EE9B30/doklad).
[36] For
details see the Report “Torture in Chechnya: ‘Normalization’
of a Nightmare” prepared by the Legal
Rights Center of “Memorial” and the International Federation for Human Rights,
as well as the chapter of “Issues of Tortures and Inhuman Treatment in Chechnya
and Northern Caucuses” prepared by the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial” and
Center of “Demos” to be found in the Russia’s NGOs’ Alternative Report on the
RF compliance with the UN Convention against Torture presented at the 37
session of the UN Committee against Torture in autumn of 2006.
[37] We also
include here the cases when the corpses of the “disappeared” people were found
later.
[38] The
[39] The
last number is preliminary. Based on the specifics of the monitoring
held in ChR, it will inevitably (and maybe considerably) grow up depending on
the data obtained for the last year.
[40] These
events were examined during the joint trip to the Northern Caucasus of the
representatives of the
[41] One of
the “Kaddyrov’s” structures
[42] The
same can be said, by the way, about many other places of burial dumping and
mass graves found in
[43] The
issue of hostage taking and reprisals in relation to the insurgents’ relatives
is covered in the Report “Chechnya
2004: “New” Methods of Anti-Terror. Hostage Taking and Repressive Actions against
Relatives of Alleged Combatants and Terrorists” prepared by the
[44] For
more details about Elina Ersenoyeva’s kidnapping see the Open Letter to the ChR
Public Prosecutor by the Helsinki Federation, the International Federation for
Human Rights and the Center of “Demos” from August 18, 2006 and an Annex to it
from August 25, 2006. (http://www.demos-center.ru/projects/66D650D/7D16046/1160677528 and http://www.demos-center.ru/projects/66D650D/7D16046/1156516907).
[45] See the
chapter “Issues of Tortures and Inhuman Treatment in Chechnya and Northern
Caucuses” prepared by the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial” and Center of
“Demos” to be found in the Russia’s NGOs’ Alternative Report on the RF
Compliance with the UN Convention against Torture presented at the 37 session
of the UN Committee against Torture in autumn 2006
[46] Response
to the inquiry by the RF Duma Deputy S.A. Kovalev
[47] Response
to the inquiry by the RF Human Rights Commissioner V.P. Lukin
[48] Response
to the inquiry by E.A. Pamfilova, Chair of the Civil Society Institutions and
Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation
[49] As of
now, Ulman’s case has been transferred for a new (third) examination by the
court
[50] The issue of impunity is
more closely addressed in the Report by the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial”
and the International Federation for Human Rights “Torture in Chechnya:
Normalization of a Nightmare, Report by the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial” “DECEPTIVE JUSTICE: Situation on the
Investigation of Crimes against Civilians Committed by Members of the Federal
Forces in the Chechen Republic During Military Operations of 1999-2003, as well as the chapter prepared by the Legal
Rights Center of “Memorial” and the Center of “Demos” “Issues of Tortures and Inhuman Treatment in Chechnya and Northern
Caucuses” prepared by the Legal Rights Center of “Memorial” and Center of
“Demos” to be found in the Russia’s NGOs’ Alternative Report on the RF
Compliance with the UN Convention against Torture presented at the 37 session
of the UN Committee against Torture in autumn 2006