HRC "Memorial": from the second half of 2000, 3297 persons were killed in Chechnya

According to the HRC "Memorial," starting from the second half of 2000 till today, a total of 3297 persons were killed in the territory of Chechnya.

Dmitri Grushkin, representative of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial," told the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" that "only this year, about 40 persons have disappeared in Chechnya."

"92 persons have been kidnapped. Kidnapping remains the most pressing problem for the Republic," he stressed and added: "Over a thousand Chechnya citizens have been kidnapped in the Republic during the last four years." The expert noted that the "kidnapping monitoring" run by the "Memorial" is covering no more than 25-30 percent of Chechnya territory.

"It means that the real number of those kidnapped and murdered is much higher," he stressed.

We remind you that earlier Nurdi Nukhazhiev, Ombudsman in the Chechen Republic, addressed his special report named "Problems of Disappearances in the Chechen Republic and Search of Mechanism for Establishing Location of Forced Away and Detained Persons" to the deputies of the People's Assembly of Chechnya.
 
"The actuality and importance of the topic of the present Special Report, I think, is clear to all present here, since the problem has become, from the very start of the counterterrorist operation in the North Caucasus, one of the most debatable both in foreign and Russian media because of massive violations of human rights during this operation," Nurdi Nukhazhiev told the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot." "The problem has turned to become pain and sufferings of a great number of our fellow citizens, and in view of a relatively small population and mentality of the nations, touched in fact on every family."

"Even under the emergency or martial law, the rights for live and personal inviolability shall remain untouchable (Part 3, Article 56 of the RF Constitution)," Nukhazhiev said. "However, the situation we have now in the Chechen Republic in kidnapping prevention, search of forced away people and investigation of the criminal cases opened on such facts is indicative of serious gaps in the issues of observance of citizens' rights and freedoms."

"The criminogenic situation in our country, and, in particular, numerous facts of kidnapping, evidence an extremely low efficiency of practically all power enforcement bodies, destined to defend rights and freedoms of Russian citizens in the territory of the Chechen Republic, and the coordinator of all this work - the prosecutor's office of the Republic, in particular," Nukhazhiev told. "According to the prosecutor's office of the Republic, as of April 1, 2006, from the inception of the counterterrorist operation, a total of 1949 criminal cases had been initiated on facts of kidnapping. Of them: 31 cases were stopped and 1679 cases were suspended for non-establishment of the persons involved in kidnapping. However, out of all the criminal cases initiated by the prosecutor's office during the above period on this sort of facts, only 87 cases went to the courts of the Republic. It makes only 4.3% of the total, indicating a very low efficiency of the law enforcement bodies in this area. Moreover, according to the MIA of the ChR, out of the above number of kidnapped and missing people in the 2000-2005 period, only 190 persons were announced into the federal search, and only 2 were actually found."

"For you to compare, in the Republic of Tatarstan, out of all missing people, and among them, out of 2099 persons forced away in 2004, a total of 1250 were found, which makes 60.1% of the total number. According to the state human rights bodies and human rights NGOs, as of the current moment, the Republic has registered 2707 facts of kidnapping by unidentified members of power entities," Nukhazhiev's report runs. "Relatives of the missing people are desperately importuning both Republic's and federal law enforcement entities. Their complaints and petitions sent to the federal bodies of state power are, as a rule, readdressed to the managers of those law enforcement bodies, which are the subject of these complaints and petitions."

"Out of the total number of kidnappings, in 187 cases we know dates, time of detention and number of block-posts, registration numbers of military machines, surnames, names, patronymics and radio calls of the servicemen who took part in their detention, designations of the military units engaged in special operations, etc.," the Ombudsman in Chechnya stated. "Under an obvious belonging of these criminal cases to the jurisdiction of the military prosecutor, they are groundlessly investigated by territorial prosecutor's offices. Moreover, the files on these cases are at the district prosecutor's offices and district departments of the MIA of the ChR system, which are not capable to retrieve the required information on the persons involved in disappearances of people, or to interrogate them."

"It follows from analysis of the work of international, state-owned and non-governmental human rights bodies and public organizations, and from official responses to their request sent to various instances of federal and Republic's law enforcement bodies, that to establish the whereabouts of this great (for the Chechen Republic) number of kidnapped and missing persons, we need a special mechanism to be designed and built by the supreme bodies of state power of the Russian Federation and of the Chechen Republic," Nukhazhiev proposed to the deputies. "For this purpose, esteemed deputies, I address to you with the recommendations as follows: the President and the Government of the Chechen Republic, the Parliament of the Chechen Republic shall, by using their right of legislative initiative, address President of Russian Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, as the warrant of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, with a request to issue a Decree "On Establishment of Inter-Branch State Commission to Solve the Problems of Massive Kidnappings and Disappearances of Citizens of the Russian Federation in the territory of the Chechen Republic During Counterterrorist Operation in the North Caucasus."

"It would be expedient to appoint Vladimir Kolesnikov, Deputy General Prosecutor of the RF, the head of this Commission. He is a highly professional official of the Russian Federation, principled and sincerely standing for stabilization of the situation in the North Caucasus," Nukhazhiev thinks. "This Decree of the RF President will become a legal basis for issuing of a joint decision of the Prosecutor General, Minister of Defence and Minister of Interior of the Russian Federation to set up an inter-branch work group in charge of coordinating the efforts of the subjects of operative-searching and investigatory activities on the criminal cases initiated on the facts of kidnapping in the territory of Chechnya and suspended for non-establishment of persons involved in committing crimes."