20 January 2004, 13:50
Oliver Dupuis criticizes term "Chechen network"
Increasingly often, magistrates from EU member countries are using terms that tend to give substance to the idea that Chechens are involved in terrorist networks active in the European Union. The French magistrate Bruguiere, for example, has used the concept of "Chechen networks" to define everything remotely connected with international terrorism, although the use of the adjective "Chechen" is entirely unjustified. In actual fact the adjective "Chechen" serves only to define a place - generally hypothetical - where apprentice terrorists and European citizens might have chosen to go, or to define a place - also generally hypothetical - where humanitarian aid might have been sent.
Question from Olivier Dupuis, Member of the European Parliament, Radical, to the Commission:
"What does the Commission think of the use of the term "Chechen network" by magistrates from EU member countries - and in particular by the French magistrate Bruguiere - to define a criminal affair in which the only involvement of Chechens seems to be the fact that the EU citizens - and not Chechens - under accusation have referred to Chechens as the possible beneficiaries of financial aid, or Chechnya as a place where they could carry out their plan for a holy war? Does the Commission not agree that by acting in this way the magistrates in question contribute, volens nolens, to the spread of false information and to the undermining of the image and the reputation of a whole people, and that they could therefore be responsible for the growth among EU citizens of feelings of racial hatred, intolerance or even violence towards Chechen refugees living in member countries? Could the Commission ask the European Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna to carry out a thorough investigation into the extent of practices such as those outlined above, with regard both to the Chechen people and to other peoples, and into the political, juridical and judicial implications that such practices could have?"
Editors note: See also the articles "French islamists enlisting volunteers for war in Chechnya were put under examination", "Statement by Akhmed Zakayev on non-participation of Chechens in international terrorism".
Source: Transnational Radical Party
