On the Situation of Chechnya residents in the Russian Federation

On the Situation of Chechnya residents in the Russian Federation
June 2003-May 2004
Report

According to the materials of the “Migration Rights” Network, “Memorial” Human Rights Center and “Civic Assistance” Committee
29.06.2004

Автор(ы): Gannushkina Svetlana (Member of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights, Head of the “Migration and Law” Network, Chairperson of Civic Assistance Committee, Member of the board of the “Memorial” Human Rights Center)

Русский текст
German

“Memorial” Human Rights Center
“Migration Rights” Network

S.A. Gannushkina

On the Situation of Chechnya residents in the Russian Federation

June 2003-May 2004

Moscow
2004

Carried out with funding from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Based on materials provided by the “Migration Rights” Network, “Memorial” Human Rights Center and “Civic Assistance” Committee.

S.A. Gannushkina – head of the “Migration Rights” Network,
chair of the “Civic Assistance” Committee.

The following individuals participated in compiling this report:
I. Zolotarevskaya
A. Barahoev
E. Burtina
E. Ryabinina
L. Simakova
Sh. Tangiev

The “Migration Rights” Network of the “Memorial” Human Rights Center includes 56 centers providing free legal assistance to forced migrants, 5 of which are located in Chechnya and Ingushetia (http://www.refugee.memo.ru).
In Moscow, the lawyers of the “Migration Rights” Network are hosted by “Civic Assistance,” a nonprofit committee providing aid to refugees (http://www.refugee.ru).

Circulation free of charge.

TABLE of CONTENTS

I. Introduction
II. The growth of xenophobia in Russia. discrimination against ethnic minorities
III. The situation of internally displaced persons and residents of the Chechen Republic on its territory
IV. The situation of Chechnya residents in the Republic of Ingushetia
V. The situation of Chechnya residents in regions of the Russian Federation
VI. The situation of Chechens in the Moscow region
VII. Criminal cases based on fabricated charges
VIII. Conclusion
IX. Appendices
Appendix 1: Chechens in the army
Appendix 2: A dangerous symptom. The abduction and persecution of women in the Chechen Republic. January 2004
Appendix 3: The “voluntary surrender” of Mahomed Khambiyev
Appendix 4: The migration situation in the Gudermes district
Appendix 5: The Detention and Murder of Eight People from the Duba-Iurt Village (Shali District)
Appendix 6: Inquiry to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation regarding the case of T.R. Khambulatov
Appendix 7: Bombardment of the Rigahoy village – civilians are killed
Appendix 8: Attempts at judicial defense of IDPs removed from the rosters
Appendix 9: Report of the RF President’s Commission on Human Rights on its trip to the Republic of Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic, January 28-29, 2004
Appendix 10: Escalating violence in Ingushetia, March 2004.
Appendix 11: Violence in Ingushetia, June 2003
Appendix 12: Inquiry to the RF Prosecutor General regarding the case of R.B. Ozdoev.
Appendix 13: On the situation of Chechen residents in Saint-Petersburg
Appendix 14: The complaint of Z.G. Kurazova regarding the unlawful criminal prosecution of her son, R.Z. Aydamirov
Appendix 15: Interview with N.P. Dmitrienko
Appendix 16: Statement by S.A. Gannushkina regarding the possible deportation of Chechens to Russia.
Appendix 17: Reply of the Prosecutor General to the inquiry regarding the Dadayev family and Timur Khambulatov.

I. Introduction

This report is a continuation of the 2002 and 2003 reports on the situation of Chechnya residents in Russia, published by the “Memorial” Human Rights Center.
As we bring up this subject once again, we expand our scope, adding two new sections to the report.
One of them is devoted to the trend of growing xenophobia and racism in Russia. We felt it critical to touch on these contemporary phenomena in the Russian society because they create a general atmosphere that permeates every aspect of the lives of the residents of Chechnya who find themselves outside its territory. With the growth of xenophobic tendencies in the Russian society, discrimination against ethnic minorities, including internally displaced persons (IDPs) is becoming ordinary, accepted as the norm. The victims of such discrimination have even stopped contesting denials of registration, employment, educational opportunities, housing, etc. Unfortunately, governmental officials not only fail to make an adequate assessment of now commonplace manifestations of xenophobia, fascist molestation and outright crime on the basis of ethnicity or race, they also frequently fuel nationalist sentiment with their statements and actions, themselves helping to create the enemy. Many politicians and the media supporting them stoke the flames of interethnic strife openly and with impunity. The judiciary tries to cover up racially motivated crimes; courts practically never label these crimes with the appropriate legal category, protecting criminals who victimize refugees, labor migrants, and IDPs. It goes without saying that our report cannot exhaust these vast and troubling issues. Still, we hope to draw broad attention to a problem that has taken on threatening proportions and has removed Russia from the ranks of countries that are safe for internal as well as external migrants.
The second section we have added since our previous reports describes the situation of those residents of the Chechen Republic who have returned to or never left its territory. We never touched upon this issue in our earlier reports because until the present time no one had any doubts that this territory could not be called safe. However, since the fall of 2003, after the presidential elections that took place in the Chechen Republic, the newly elected president Akhmad Kadyrov and his following redoubled their efforts to return residents of Chechnya to its territory with the support of the Russian federal government. This time around human rights activists were unable to defend the tent camps in Ingushetia, as they had succeeded in doing in the fall of 2003. The majority of the residents of those camps were given no real alternative to returning to the Chechen Republic. In exerting pressure on IDPs to return, the authorities insisted that life in Chechnya had become peaceful, that compensation was being paid, that housing was being actively repaired and new homes constructed. Moreover, Akhmad Kadyrov dubbed all those who refused to return Wahhabis and accused them of connections to Aslan Mashadov, a man against whom he had waged jihad. According to official statistics, the population of Chechnya continues to swell, but the number of those who have been killed and continue to die remains hidden or repressed by the authorities.
According to the 2002 population census, 1,088,000 people lived in the Chechen Republic. At the same time, the staff of the Danish Refugee Council conducted a door-to-door study to determine the level of humanitarian need and counted about 600,000 residents.
Alexandr Cherkasov, staff member of the “Hot Spots” program, and a member of the Council of the “Memorial” Human Rights Center, conducted an analysis based on the official figures, which showed that the loss of life in Chechnya is proportionate to that suffered by the Soviet people during Stalin’s reign of terror. Mr. Cherkasov writes:
“In 1937-1938, during the period of Stalin’s great terror, the KGB came at night, arrested people, and after torture and a sham of a trial, simply shot them. Relatives were told their loved ones had been condemned to ten years in far-off camps with no right to correspondence. In this manner, hundreds of thousands disappeared. All in all, about 750,000 people were executed out of a Soviet population of 170,000,000 during the years of the great terror – 44 in every 10,000.
Today, 65 years later, masked “federals” armed to the teeth drive around Chechnya at night in armored fighting vehicles, taking away people who then “disappear.” No official authority admits of any complicity in their detention. Sometimes relatives recover the bodies of the “disappeared” with traces of the cruelest torture. In fact, to avert identification, many bodies are destroyed.
Just how many have “disappeared” in this way, no one can say for sure. According to the figures of the Russian prosecutor’s office, more than 1,660 through January 2003, but according to the data of the Chechen government’s commission on the search for those who have disappeared without a trace – over 2,800. Neither Kadyrov’s administration, nor the Russian prosecutor’s office is interested in inflating the figure. Translated onto a “Soviet scale,” the number yields 46 who have disappeared for every 10,000.”
By including in this report a section on the present situation of the Chechen population, we hope to alert any unwary consumers of information to the fact that the majority of Russian media who speak of Chechnya’s impending rebirth are, unfortunately, misleading them.
Nonetheless, people are returning to the Chechen Republic, not in a massive flow as the authorities would have wanted, but in a steady and growing stream. How does one explain this movement and why, since 1994, have many residents refused to leave Chechnya? We hope to answer this question here.
As of today, the “Migration Rights” Network consists of 56 consultation points in different regions of Russia, four of them located in the Chechen Republic. “If we had a thousand dollars per person,” our Moscow visitors tell us, “we would arrange our passports, buy our visas, and go to Europe.”
“If we had a few thousand rubles, we would leave this camp and try to find work somewhere in Russia,” we’re told in Ingushetia by people who have grown tired of never ending trubles.
“If I had 20 rubles,” says a mountain village resident at the entrance to his decimated home – speaking in front of the camera of a well-known peace activist, our colleague Viktor Popkov, who was killed in Chechnya in 2001 – “I would go to Ingushetia, to the refugee camp.” He had just buried his relatives alongside the ruins and would not remain in the village another day with his family if they had something for the children to wear, some form of transportation, and a little money – 10 rubles a person, to get past the checkpoint.
The better off cannot even imagine that within the borders of one country, it might be impossible to move to a safer location, as close as 100-150 km away. Yet those who remain in Chechnya have no money, and no other subjects of the Federation (with one exception) have organized any programs to receive Chechens or created shelters where they can lodge and eat, if even for a little while.
Those who left Chechnya thus had to rely only on their own strength, and perhaps on relatives, who might help with housing and food as much and for as long as they could. Having held out for a few years, completely exhausting their own meager resources and the generosity of friends and loved ones, losing after the terrorist acts even the least prestigious employment (many several times over), giving up all hope of government aid, some Chechen families are returning to their decimated homeland. They do so with full awareness of the situation there, understanding that they are risking the lives of their children. More than a few, having made the fateful decision, return only leave again, with members of their families missing or maimed. In Chechnya, young men are automatically suspected of being fighters in armed militias. They face the greatest danger if they return, as countless cases of kidnapping and extrajudicial killings confirm. It may seem as though young Chechen men who enlist in the Russian army should be above suspicion of disloyalty and deserve support. In reality, however, such service ends in tragedy (Appendix 1).
Nor is the position of women less precarious; they have recently begun to be suspected of complicity in organizing terrorist acts. Moreover, the detention of women has become a method of forcing warlords to surrender to those who hold their relatives captive. Yet there is no way out: need and desperation drive people to this place where their lives are in danger every hour of every day. (Appendix 2 and 3)
There was only one republic in Russia where Chechens could live without constantly looking over their shoulder, expecting to see a police officer by their side, without waiting to be forced out of their homes or denied employment. This is the Republic of Ingushetia, with its excess of labor, its lack of wealth, and a population that has nearly doubled due to the influx of IDPs. Tent camps were erected on its territory, and high-density settlement points appeared spontaneously. Factories, farms, even an aviary, were transformed into housing for Chechens seeking refuge. Ingushetian authorities allowed IDPs who had no registration at the place of residence not only to hold a job but even to open their own small businesses. A number of such small enterprises--ateliers, barber shops, repair shops—were organized with the help of the nongovernmental organization “German-Russian Exchange.” Many were formed with no outside help at all. Furthermore, all legal and traditional mechanisms were mobilized to ensure that no conflicts sparked up between the new arrivals and the local population. Thus only the support of Ingushetia and the humanitarian assistance of international organizations, primarily UNHCR, the Danish Refugee Council, and the Czech organization “Man in Need,” prevented hundreds of thousands of Chechens from falling victim to an inhuman battle.
Unfortunately over the course of 2003, Ingushetia stopped being an oasis of security for Chechnya residents. Since the end of 2002, the Chechen Republic’s Committee on Refugee Affairs has constantly agitated for return in Ingushetia. Of course, such naпve suggestions as coming back “because the Chechen Republic’s leadership was embarrassed in front of their neighbors of Chechen citizens’ unwillingness to live at home” were not the end of the story. The campaign was accompanied by threats and reporting on those who supposedly did not live in the camp but on whose behalf the migration service of the Republic of Ingushetia continued to receive humanitarian assistance. Under such pressure, migration authorities were forced to remove camp residents from the rosters. Little by little, all the horrors of life in Chechnya spread to Ingushetia as well: kidnappings, “cleansings” in tent camps and settlement points, unlawful detentions. Moreover, a political standoff between the Republic of Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic was artificially manufactured, fueled by less than respectful statements about their neighbors on the part of the Chechen leadership. By creating this atmosphere of danger and constant tension, the authorities hoped to force the return of residents to the Chechen Republic.
Alongside this heavy stick, IDPs were offered a carrot: they were tempted with an immediate offer of compensation for housing and personal property that had been destroyed, a promise that is not realized and cannot be, since according to the compensation system that has been established, no more than a third of the Chechen population is entitled to compensation. Even then, the rate at which payments take place is such that the process stretches out for years. By April of 2004, only 1,500 families out of the 55,000 who had submitted applications had received compensation. The order of the payments is frequently disregarded, and bribery flourishes.
If the main problem, the problem of security, is removed from the parameters of our analysis, the next critical question becomes how to organize the return. It could have been resolved through resettlement in stages, which would likely have lasted a long time but progressed naturally as housing is reconstructed and becomes available. The temporary placement points that have been prepared in Chechnya can accept no more than 35,000 people by the most generous estimates. The most rational course would be to fill those spots with returnees, pay them compensation and help them recover their former homes or set aside newly reconstructed housing. Only then could the freed places be filled with the next waves of IDPs who wish to return to Chechnya. Those who do not dare return must be provided with alternative places of settlement in other regions. Yet nothing of the sort is taking place. The return is rushed and haphazard. Families informed of their right to receive compensation are usually forced to leave the temporary placement points, which already provide material aid for and count in their rosters one and a half times the people who can realistically be placed there. The rest huddle among the ruins of their decimated housing, hopelessly waiting for rooms to become available in the temporary placement points, of which they are already considered residents. As for alternatives for settlement outside of Chechnya, Ingushetia remains the only option and even there, there are too few spots to satisfy the demand, and all of them are in temporary housing. One way or another, residents will have to leave.
The facts enumerated in this report lead inevitably to the following conclusions:
1. The government has no program either for the orderly relocation of IDPs to Chechnya or to provide for their resettlement in other Russian regions.
2. Return cannot be called voluntary since the problem of safety in Chechnya remains acute for all of its residents. This very day, May 9, 2004, as this report was being prepared, the president of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad Kadyrov was killed.
3. The conditions do not exist that would permit residents of the Chechen Republic to resolve their own problems, whether they concern safety or financial need. Moreover, the question is not one of a higher or lower standard of living, but of survival.
There remains a small group of residents of the Chechen Republic who retained some assets and who, after borrowing enough money or earning it with their own blood and sweat, ran to the West, in the hope of being given refuge. But instead of compassion, they are greeted with distrust, suspicion of terrorist sympathies and an endless process for establishing status that drives people, quite literally, insane. Those who leave are aware of these conditions but go anyway, summoning their last strength, hoping to keep their children safe, if only for a while.

*) “On the situation in Russia of Chechnya residents who involuntarily left Chechen territory.” “R-Valent,” M., 2002, “On the situation in Russia of Chechen residents who involuntarily left Chechen territory. June 2002-May 2003;” “R-Valent,” M., 2003.
In electronic form in Russian:
http://refugee.memo.ru/C325678F00668DC3/$ID/B00DB7C7B26F7226C3256BB4002D6D31,
http://refugee.memo.ru/C325678F00668DC3/$ID/3670BAD3E8162D96C3256D4300730EE2;
In English:
http://refugee.memo.ru/For_All/RUPOR.NSF/07c2f686b7397675c3256a530068f463/9bf376467e69ac49c3256bd3007a8b55!OpenDocument,
http://refugee.memo.ru/For_All/RUPOR.NSF/ff1553f7545beb8ec3256a4c0038aceb/1c65ffedd473f3b6c3256d43007abc08!OpenDocument;
In German:
http://clasen.net/gannuschkina/refugee-d.html,
http://www.clasen.net/gannuschkina/2003-05-de.html.

**) See “Alternative nongovernmental organization report on the “Russian Federation compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination:” M.: “Zvenya,” 2003.
http://www.memo.ru/hr/news/doklnpo/index.htm.

***) The book of numbers. The book of losses. The book of judgment. Demographics, the loss of population and migration flows in the zone of armed conflict in the Chechen Republic, by Aleksandr Cherkasov.
http://www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/chechen/1cherk04.htm

II. The growth of xenophobia in Russia. discrimination against ethnic minorities

Nationalist sentiments have grown much more pronounced in the Russian Federation over the past year. Those from the Caucasus as well as Asia and Africa are nearly constantly exposed to manifestations of xenophobia. Attacks on people of non-Slavic appearance by gangs of young people with extremist views (so-called skinheads and analogous groups) have become more frequent. The cases are numerous where such attacks and beatings were fatal for the victims.
Against this background, with ethnic intolerance in society close to the “boiling point,” it is critical to analyze how the interethnic tensions arose and what factors contribute to and augment them.
The statements of the president of the Russian Federation represent a driving force behind the activities of all the branches of the government today.
Immediately after the explosion in the Moscow metro on February 6, 2004, President Putin held Aslan Mashadov squarely responsible for the terrorist act: “The very existence of calls for negotiations with Mashadov after the crimes were committed indirectly corroborates his ties to bandits and terrorists,” the President declared on the air of the NTV television channel, “but we don’t need such indirect evidence. We are fairly certain that Mashadov and his bandits are connected to this terrorist act.” These words were uttered only a few hours after the blast. The President not only failed to wait for a court verdict to be rendered, he did not even await the preliminary results of the investigation.
After this presidential statement, law-enforcement organs undertook actions that bear little relevance to the investigation of terrorist acts. In the last weeks of February, a number of Muslims were stopped and searched in the mosques of Moscow. “These actions took place as part of the operation “storm-antiterror,” an official from the bureau for fighting organized crime in the police office of Moscow’s central administrative district informed a correspondent of “Novaya Gazeta” newspaper. “The goal is fighting organized crime. We never required those we detained to sign a cooperation agreement. We only demanded a detailed account of what they are doing in Moscow. On the whole, I can say that what we wanted, we got.” The head of the central directorate for maintaining public order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs explained as follows: “Security organs in the course of checking Muslim religious institutions stopped ideologues of terrorism... Individuals were detained in one of the mosques who did not necessarily play a role in terrorist acts but are of the corresponding ideological frame of mind.
This idea of controlling an “ideological frame of mind” was likewise voiced on April 12, 2004 by the deputy general prosecutor of the Russian Federation V.I. Kolesnikov: “We must hold accountable the keepers of prayer houses who preach Wahhabism.”
The position of the judicial authorities is fully in accord with this statement. Thus, in April 2004, Moscow’s Savelov court upheld the contention of Moscow prosecutor Anatoliy Zuyev on recognizing as extremist literature “The Book of Monotheism,” the work of Wahhabism’s founder Muhamed ibn Suleyman at-Tamimi. The court’s decision has taken legal effect, and the book’s circulation is now forbidden on the territory of the Russian Federation. This means that the followers of one of the religious branches of Islam who study the forbidden book now find themselves outside the law in Russia, regardless of whether they have committed any other illegal acts.
The recent decisions of the Russian courts, in effect, give free reign to bigots in general and to those who impose their will in Chechnya, in particular. Unfortunately, a sizeable part of the Russian population acquiesces in these decisions. Hence a Rostov-on-Don jury acquitted an intelligence unit of the General Staff under the command of Captain Ulman. In January 2000, this group, consisting of three officers and a warrant officer killed six civilians in the Shatoy area of Chechnya and destroyed their bodies. It must be noted, however, that rules were broken in the jury selection process that give grounds for contesting the court’s decision.
The judicial authorities in Central Russia similarly show obvious tolerance toward the followers of fascist ideologies. Thus, in February 2004, the Moscow city court gave suspended sentences to two of the perpetrators of the Yasenev market pogrom carried out in honor of Hitler’s birthday on April 21, 2001 and sentenced a third one to six months’ imprisonment. From 100 to 200 young people participated in the pogrom, shouting nationalist slogans and attacking the vendors who were, for the most part, of Caucasian origin. Ten vendors were wounded, some more seriously than others. The most common injuries were bruises, abrasions and cuts from broken glass. The attackers smashed about 30 stands.
The case against the killers of the Angolan citizen Massa Mayoni, who was seeking refuge in Russia, seems to be dragging on endlessly. On August 23, 2001 at about 5 p.m. near the Moscow refugee reception center of the UNHCR, a group of teenagers aged 15-17, armed with broken bottles and sticks, attacked six Africans. Paul Massa Mayoni received grave bodily injuries, lost consciousness, and was taken to the hospital where he died on September 5, without ever awaking from his coma. He left behind his wife, a Russian citizen, and two minor children.
Initially, the actions of Paul Massa Mayoni’s teenage attackers were categorized as “infliction of grave bodily injuries leading to death” (Art.111 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
However, at the request of the defense, new expert testimony was admitted, which suddenly “established,” that Paul’s death was the result of falling the distance of his own height and hitting his head against a flat, hard object, presumably the ground. The new expert witnesses, going outside the bounds of their competence, rejected the conclusions drawn from the first expert findings--properly the prerogative of the court.
As a result, the categorization of the crime was amended to “hooliganism.” (Article 213). And in this state the case proceeded to trial.
During the hearings on the merits, a third group of experts was called, which confirmed the conclusions of the first. However, the categorization of the crime remains, no verdict is rendered, and the killers enjoy impunity.

The attitude of Moscow authorities when it comes to the positions of different social groups on the war in Chechnya and internally displaced persons from the Caucasus is quite telling.
The extremist “Movement against illegal immigration” scheduled a meeting under the slogan of “Cleansing Moscow of Chechen bandits” for February 20, 2004. The cars of the metro for days ahead were papered with flyers, inviting Moscow residents to join forces with the exponents of a fascist ideology. Only after human rights advocates openly addressed the prosecutorial organ, the city police office leadership and Mayor Luzhkov was the meeting cancelled, but not out of concern for fueling interethnic strife but “in connection with the need to clear snow in the stated area.”
City authorities permitted an analogous meeting organized by the same group to take place for two hours on March 16 in the center of Moscow. A group of young antifascists unfurled their own banner “Fascism won’t fly” outside the area blocked off for the event but were attacked by meeting participants. Security personnel intervened and as a result, the antifascists were detained and sent to the police precinct while the attackers were released to rejoin the meeting.
In contrast, when several of the most prominent civil society organizations in Moscow made public their plans to hold a memorial antiwar meeting in Lyubyanskaya Square on February 23rd , the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen and Ingush peoples, the Moscow authorities refused to consider the application, i.e. refused to carry out their duties. At the organizers’ request, those who attended limited themselves to placing flowers at the foot of the stone commemorating the victims of Stalin’s repression. Nevertheless, the organizers were detained, prosecuted, and sentenced to a fine.
At the same time, the Moscow authorities endeavored to put an end to the weekly antiwar picket that had been taking place every Thursday in Pushkin Square in Moscow for four years - since the resumption of military activities in Chechnya. From March 11 to April 8, 2004, the city authorities likewise refused to consider the picket organizers’ application. The March 11 picket was prohibited on a technicality, having nothing to do with its implementation, only hours before it was scheduled to begin. When the picketers who had gathered protested the unlawful prohibition, three of them were detained.
Such lenience and occasionally even tacit encouragement on the part of the government has inevitably led to the most tragic of consequences. Only a few of the many manifestations of nationalist hatred are widely publicized. The vast majority of them go unpunished. There are numerous examples of such crimes, some of which never reached a broad audience, others that evoked little response notwithstanding the fact that they were covered by a number of media organs.
On July 17, 2003 in Moscow, skinheads severely beat Artur Yurevich Magakyan, a refugee from Azerbaijan; he died in the hospital three days later. Criminal charges were brought only after nongovernmental organizations approached the prosecution. By May 2004, the investigation had made practically no progress.
On September 17, 2003 in Yekaterinburg, a group of young people shouting racist slurs attacked Martin Adams, a black staff member of the regional television station, only 10 meters away from the city police office building. “During the whole scuffle, while 15 underage cretins “pounded” the journalist, not one police officer came out of the city office” the regional television broadcast announced.
That same month, an Armenian family of three was murdered in Stavropol Krai. One morning three men in masks broke into the yard of the private house where the family lived, shooting the wife and the owner’s son with a hunting rifle. The owner of the house himself received several knife and bullet wounds.
On December 26, 2003 in St. Petersburg Sergey Belda Gertsen, a student at Leningrad City University was killed; he was a Nanayets by nationality. Unknown assailants beat and stabbed him, inflicting numerous injuries from which he died in the hospital. According to witnesses at the scene, the attackers were dressed in black as is characteristic of skinhead groups.
On January 14, 2004 in Moscow a 13 year old Tajik girl was attacked while walking with a friend in Zaritsinskiy Park. The friend, who had a Slavic appearance, was released unharmed. When after more than four hours, the girl was found by a random passerby, she bore 19 stab wounds. She was brought to the hospital and operated upon the same day, but since she had spent a long time lying in the cold snow, her lungs were severely damaged and she died 18-20 days later. In contrast to the widely publicized killing of a Tajik girl in Saint Petersburg in February, neither the parents nor the doctors in the Moscow case dared appeal to the general public. The parents feared for the lives of their other children, the doctors for their own safety. Such sentiments are a symptom perhaps even graver than the murder itself.
On February 23, 2004 in Izhevsk a group consisting of eight activists from the “Izhevsk movement against violence” and the movement “ATAKA” were attacked, as they returned from an antiwar picket, by a group of young people armed with cold-arms. Oleg Serebrennikov of the “Izhevsk movement against violence” and the coordinator of the ecological program of the “Yekaterinburg movement against violence,” Alexander Zimbovskiy were badly bruised and suffered open wounds to the head. Representatives of the fascist party proceeded to visit Serebrennikov at the hospital, threatening him with further retaliation for his activities.
In late February 2004 in Orel, during the Russian national archery championship, skinheads battered a 17 year old Buryat athlete, Darima Nimayeva. She was attacked on her way back to the hotel after the competition and suffered multiple traumas as well as severe psychological shock.
On March 16, 2004 in the center of Kursk two foreign students at the Kursk public medical university were brutally beaten. One of them, Guru Parab Kalimuhod of Malaysia, was beaten by a group of young people armed with sticks. The other, Sri Lankan Vithitung Mudin Sing, ran into a group of teenagers near the student dormitory and received a blow to the head with an empty bottle that put him in the neurosurgical unit of the city hospital.
In late April in Kostroma an 11 year old Armenian boy was assaulted. The attackers set fire to his clothes and took cover, leaving passersby to put it out. A few days later, announcements were made that according to the Kostroma enforcement organs, this was not a skinhead attack but an unfortunate outcome of children’s horseplay. This notwithstanding the reports of witnesses at the scene, who insisted that the assailants looked like typical skinheads with shaved heads and black uniform-like garb.
An exhaustive list of similar incidents would take pages, but even without one, it is clear that the wave of aggression currently flooding Russia meets practically no resistance on the part of the authorities. In fact, the opposite is true. The government is cleverly wielding this wave to create in the public consciousness an “image of the enemy,” one supposedly responsible for all the hardships of contemporary Russian life.

The spread of xenophobia in Russian society is, on the one hand, reflected in the mass media and, on the other, frequently created or fueled by it, as “‘The language of animosity’ in the mass media”, a project jointly carried out by the analytical center “SOVA,” the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Center for the development of democracy and human rights made abundantly clear.* No media considered nationalist were included in the monitoring effort. Only neutral socio-political publications were considered. “The language of animosity” included both direct and veiled incitation to violence against members of any national group as well as reminders of “historical crimes” committed by one or another ethnic or religious group, judgmental opinions about its moral character, and accusations that the group is having a negative impact on Russian government and society.
As compared with the results of an analogous study conducted one year ago, the frequency of corresponding statements has increased by nearly 20%. Tellingly, a number of publications addressing criminal matters steadfastly continue to name the nationality of the perpetrators, so long as they are not Russians.
According to sociologist Lev Gudkov, the country is undergoing a transformation in mass self-identification: “Since they are no real accomplishments to report, people express themselves through animosity toward others who are not like themselves. This is the typical reaction of the have-nots to the failures of reform and growing pessimism.” The Chechen War catalyzed a huge aggressive reaction: people speak of ill-will toward those of Caucasian origin twice as often as they refer to the same sentiments toward other national groups. Another peculiarity of the Russian mass consciousness is its inability to distinguish internal migrants from migrants who arrived from foreign countries, responding to all with relatively equal aversion.

*) http://xeno.sova-center.ru/213716E/21728E3/349455B

III. The situation of internally displaced persons and residents of the Chechen Republic on its territory

The problem of refugees, or, according to international law, internally displaced persons (IDPs) arose with the resumption of military activities in September 1999 and the concomitant bombing of the northern areas of Chechnya. At the time Russian authorities not only failed to take any measures to evacuate civilians but actually did everything in their power to keep them in Chechnya. The authorities of neighboring republics were directed to refuse refuge on their territories to those running from Chechnya, regardless of nationality. Lines of people stretched for kilometers at the border but were not allowed to pass the newly constructed checkpoints. In the morning of October 29, 1999, bombs were dropped on one such line resulting in the deaths of dozens of innocent victims. In November, the president of the Republic of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev demanded that people who had been waiting to leave for weeks finally be let through the checkpoint “Kavkaz.” Ingushetia received hundreds of thousands of Chechen refugees, nearly doubling its population. Two tent camps “North” and “South” were likewise organized on Chechen territory in the village of Znamenskoye as well as 6 temporary placement points in Argun, Sernovodsk, and Assinovskaya. Altogether they housed 12,500 IDPs.
IDPs on Chechen territory. Most people simply lacked the resources to flee beyond Chechnya’s borders. They yearned first to get to Grozny and, from there, to places they felt would be the safest.
Some of them were painfully mistaken, as were those who sought refuge in the village of Elistanzha in the Vedenskiy region only to be subjected to blanket bombardment or in the Komsomolskoye village in the Urus-Martanovskiy region where an operation of unprecedented cruelty was carried out against guerrilla fighters passing through the village. In the process, all the houses in the village were destroyed while the residents, including children and the elderly, were kept in a nearby field for four days and nights.
The mountain villages that had served as an oasis of safety for the residents of Grozny and other major populated areas during the military activities of 1994-1995 were such no longer. An utter lack of money functionally deprived residents of any freedom of movement. Their only option was to surrender to their fate and stay by their wrecked houses where they could survive on their cattle and vegetable gardens, if they did not become the victims of artillery fire and bombs.
Russian authorities withheld and distorted information about the situation. As early as September 1999 they announced that people should not be afraid to return to the northern areas. The residents of the Shelkovskaya village believed this and set off for home on a bus. By the bridge across the Terek, the bus was subjected to heavy artillery fire. Several people were killed, and a second wave of fire was unleashed on the doctors who arrived to help the wounded.
Efforts were made to forcefully return IDPs to their permanent places of residence. One night in December 1999 several carloads of people were taken from the “North” tent camp to Chechnya. Only the active resistance of the camp residents themselves prevented mass repatriation.
In the spring of 2000 there was another announcement that the military activities were over and all the refugees can go home. In response, several families from the village of Michurin returned. Their houses had been destroyed but they found a half-finished building intended for a kindergarten nearby and settled there. They repaired a few rooms on their own and established access to gas. Neither the city nor the regional administration offered any assistance except registering them at their temporary place of residence. In 2002, the building was taken over in large part by the Center for Medical Catastrophes, the management of which demanded that the residents vacate the premises. No alternate housing was provided. In this way, over and again the many assurances of Chechnya’s preparedness for the return of IDPs proved to be lies when it came to both security and social conditions.
The problems with returning residents to the Chechen Republic soon became acutely political since they belied the picture Russian authorities were trying to draw for the international community of a Chechnya where order has been restored and which is fully under control.
The real numbers of IDPs and the reality of their situation were hidden from view. But it was impossible to hide the presence of more than 300,000 IDPs from Chechnya in Ingushetia, of whom 30,000 had been placed in camps constructed and provided for primarily by international or foreign organizations. And getting IDPs from Ingushetia to return to Chechnya proved harder than compelling those who remained on Chechen territory to return to their places of origin.
In April of 2001 a special branch was created in the government of the Chechen Republic with responsibility for the return of IDPs – the committee on the problems of forced migrants headed by Abubakir (Vaha) Shitaevich Baibatyrov. The committee was charged with the task of returning IDPs by fall of 2001. In the summer, a few dozen families agreed to move to a building in the city of Argun that had formerly housed a kindergarten. They were privately promised a 150,000 rubles each by the year’s end. These promises were never fulfilled, and cruel “cleansings” took place in that neighborhood of Argun. A school was blown up, in which some of the students were children of IDPs. Such stories effectively put an end to any plans for return to Chechnya, where there were no guarantees of security, no housing or infrastructure reconstruction was taking place, and work was unavailable even for those who had never left.
Until the spring of 2002, the process was impulsive and haphazard. The pressure on IDPs to return grew markedly in fall 2002 after the adoption of the decision to hold a referendum on the Constitution of the Chechen Republic and the passage of the law on elections. At times this pressure took on cruel forms. Thus during the liquidation of the tent camps in the village of Znamenskoye, bulldozers razed the tents of those who did not give in to threats. Against the almost complete silence of the international community, the camps were liquidated. The people who had been placed there did not dare protest actively enough since special operations, taking tens of lives, were conducted daily right in front of them.
As the camps lost money and the authorities appealed to IDPs to return from Ingushetia, thousands of people in Chechnya left their homes. In the fall of 2002, bombardment began in the mountain districts of Kurchailoysk, Nozhay Yurtovskiy, and Vadenskiy. People fled in panic, trying to escape the arbitrary rule on the part of the soldiers. Whole villages emptied out but no representative of the government showed any interest in the fate of their residents. They were provided no roof over their head, no provisions and no registration, placing their lives and freedom in jeopardy. During “cleansings” those without registration often became victims of detentions and disappearances.
Bombings and artillery fire were replaced by mass cleansings, mass cleansings by targeted ones. People continued to die and disappear as before.
According to the figures of the government committee of the Chechen Republic on forced migrants, there were 347,000 IDPs on Chechen territory at the start of the hostilities. On the territory of the Republic of Ingushetia, there were 290,000 IDPs. Since the start of the government committee’s work in April 2001 it has resettled 180,000 persons from Ingushetia.

Compensation. Included among other preparations for the referendum was a generous pronouncement about the upcoming payment of compensation for lost housing and personal property. According to the statements, the former residents of temporary placement points were to receive compensation first. This promise heavily influenced the decisions of many to return.
Thereafter every time elections were coming up whether for the president of the Chechen republic, the parliament of the Russian Federation, or the president of the Russian Federation, the authorities mobilized on the refugee return front and used such leverage as promising compensation or other social payments.
Finally on July 4, 2003 the government of the Russian Federation adopted resolution # 404 “On the order of realizing compensation payments for lost housing and personal property to those citizens of the Chechen Republic permanently residing on its territory who suffered as a result of the crisis.” The government decided to form a Commission to evaluate citizens’ claims to compensation payments that was instructed to compile and confirm lists of citizens whose houses are included in the inventory of housing that had been destroyed and is unfit for reconstruction on the territory of the Chechen Republic by August 15, 2003. Effective August 15, applications for compensation were accepted, and the RF Ministry of Finance was charged with providing funds in 2003-2004 and the government of the Chechen Republic was charged with making compensation payments in the allotted time frame.
Notwithstanding the fact that no inventorying of destroyed housing ever took place, an arbitrary decision was made that 39 thousand families would receive compensation since 14 billion rubles were set aside in the federal budget for this purpose.
It goes without saying that there were far more applications; according to the authority responsible for making the compensation payments, they numbered approximately 55,000 by the end of March 2004. Many never found their wrecked houses in the register of those that are “not subject to reconstruction.” It became obvious that abuses were already taking place when the register was being compiled. The wrecked house of one of “Memorial” staff members was entered in the register only after inquiry through a Duma deputy. The Commission also checks whether applicants actually reside in Chechnya. If at the moment of inspection the residents of a destroyed house happen to be away, they might be stricken from the lists of candidates for receiving compensation.
Moreover, the time frame for compensation payments went off track almost right away. By the beginning of May 2004, about 1,600 families had received compensation. One of the authorities’ chief excuses was the fact that the register of destroyed housing was not created in time. Only in early February 2004 did the newly formed Commission of staff members from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Construction Agency charged with ascertaining the scope of destruction of housing in the Republic begin its work. Clearly at this rate compensation is likely to take years, as is already the case with those who left the Chechen Republic for good during the course of the first military campaign. The RF government resolution determining the order of compensation payments to those citizens adopted on April 30, 1997 has not been implemented to this day.
The applicants’ rights to disclosure of information are being violated. For one thing, there are no reception centers for citizens to turn to as questions arise. The method for determining the order of compensation recipients is muddled and lacks transparency. Moreover, written requests for clarification remain unanswered.
Special commissions investigating the progress of compensation payments established pervasive fraud in compensation affairs, reaching 45 percent of all applications in some regions. Receipts for applications were often given without numbers or stamps, a practice that led to additional complications. Meanwhile, the papers of many bona fide applicants were simply lost by officials.
Returning IDPs from tent camps on the territory of Ingushetia and temporary placement points on Chechen territory were promised first place in the payment of compensation. However, 70-80 percent of those living in temporary placement points have no right to receive compensation at all since their housing is not included in the register. People are extremely concerned about how their fate is to be decided. Their worries are exacerbated when officials from the migration services suggest that they solve their problems themselves and inform them that after compensation is made to those who are entitled to it, the temporary placement points will be closed.
Two applicants for compensation numbering among those IDPs who have no housing, Adlan Usmanovich Kasumov and Ramzan Adlanovich Kasumov (an invalid of the first group), were informed by Republic authorities --after the Commission on Human Rights for the President of the RF intervened on their behalf—that they were to receive compensation payments immediately. They submitted their documents and obtained receipts showing that the documents were registered under numbers 031106 and 031109 respectively on September 8, 2003.
However, in January 2004, the Kasumovs learned that other names were listed under those numbers: Shamsadov and Shabazov. In a strange coincidence, one of the members of the compensation payment commission of the Oktyabrskiy region is likewise named Ahmed Shabazov.
When asked how such confusion could have come about, the Committee could give no satisfactory answer.
Furthermore, the residents of temporary placement points who have actually received compensation are few and far between. At the outset the migration organs demanded that persons informed of an upcoming payment of compensation vacate their rooms in the temporary placement points. IDPs, knowing full well how long it might take before they can actually put compensation money in the bank, refused to leave. Under pressure from non-governmental organizations and the residents themselves, the migration services made concessions. Unfortunately, the IDPs’ frequent ignorance of such decisions in their favor allowed the temporary placement points’ administration to take advantage of the situation. Informing IDPs who had received notices of compensation that they will no longer receive their allowances, the administration appropriates the goods intended for them.
Although the Chechen authorities deny any role in taking bribes from those receiving compensation and declare their preparedness to fight this phenomenon, all applicants without exception are convinced that they must turn down as much as 30 to 50% of their allotted compensation. People are afraid to complain because on Chechen territory they are defenseless against physical reprisals. And the bribery mechanism is very simple: negotiations with officials are done through a “pusher” who is authorized by proxy to receive compensation money through the bank. After receiving the compensation, he gives the principals the share they had previously agreed upon. When questioned, people told the head of the Migration Rights Network, Svetlana Gannushkina, that, according to the officials, 15% goes to Moscow, another 15% to the Chechen Republic leadership, 10% to the bank, and a little more to the officials themselves. There are even cases where those receiving compensation are robbed and killed.
The situation of those Chechen residents, including IDPs, whose homes were not deemed “unfit for reconstruction” is even more precarious. They must wait until their houses are reconstructed. Unfortunately, the process is unfolding so slowly that if nothing changes reconstruction will take 20 years, according to the Chairman of the Auditing Commission of the Government of the Russian Federation, S.V. Stepashin.
Social conditions. The Chechen Republic’s infrastructure lies in ruins. The sanitation system in Grozny is paralyzed: water pressure in the city’s pipes is so weak that it does not even go above the first floor. Almost half the city’s residents use water from the outside for which they have to pay. The residents of multistory houses must carry the water up flights of stairs, the elevators not functioning even in the nine and twelve story houses that have been repairs. The heat works in a few inhabited houses, but unreliably. There is not a single apartment building in the city that has been completely renovated at government expense.
The provision of electricity is likewise moving very slowly. As a result, many residents attempt to wire buildings themselves, creating life-threatening situations and potentially ruining the amenities.
The roads remain highly dangerous. Practically no repairs have been carried out: there are no covers on manholes, for example, leading to a number of accidents, some of them very serious. Since the collection of black and colored metal has been turned over to private entrepreneurs instead of being controlled by the government and manhole covers are transformed into a commodity, this problem is likely to continue for a long time.
From the perspective of health and sanitation, the city’s condition is deplorable. Public utilities workers constantly sweep a few central streets while the yards drown in garbage, the removal of which is not provided for at all. There is not one trashcan in the entire city. The most horrifying cite is the central market where greens and meat are sold right alongside piles of refuse.
Unemployment presents a particularly acute problem. An unemployment grant of 672 rubles per month is paid but only for a period of six months after which all payments are cut off. The recipients must wait another half a year for the possibility of renewed relief, and even then in the lesser sum of 445 rubles.
Police officers remain the highest paid and in the greatest demand. It would seem that in a city in ruins, the most popular specialists would be builders, but that is not the case. There are frequent cases where governmental organs cheat builders, never paying them when the work is completed. Ignorant of their legal rights, builders make oral, not written, agreements with contractors and do not file suit.
People try to find employment for themselves. Women ordinarily work at the market, but their frequent lack of necessary documentation gives market, area, and city administrators opportunity to export money. Moreover, anyone dressed in camouflage gear and wielding a gun can simply rob them. Markets appear spontaneously since the women set up their stands wherever they are likely to attract customers. Yet instead of fighting the filth, the city administration prefers to fight these merchant women. In late December of 2003, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic conduct a “cleansing” operation in the market. As a result, tents and awnings on the territory abutting the Central market were demolished and burned, thousands of people lost their jobs, and the price of food, particularly, bread shot up.
Men who own cars work as drivers for hire. The most lucrative business is the extraction and processing of refined oil. But this work is highly dangerous for a number of reasons. It presents an immediate risk to the lives of people who engage in it and seriously jeopardizes their health; people die of suffocation in the holes in the ground that are used for processing. Since the business is illegal and the markets are not divided, there are constant scuffles between producers and those who provide them with “cover.” In reality, only the latter make a serious profit; the entrepreneurs get precious little after all the scores are settled.
At night one can see the gasoline tanks rolling out of Chechnya, easily passing the checkpoints where car passengers are being so thoroughly interrogated even when they have certificates from Duma deputy assistants and members of the RF President’s Commission on Human Rights.
Collecting metal and other materials in dilapidated factories is as dangerous, yet less profitable business. Often such collectors fall victim to mines or other explosive devices or become easy prey for armed, camouflaged bandits who kill or kidnap them. They are forced to pay guards and lookouts for carrying out the materials, keeping only a tiny fraction of the profit for themselves. For these men there are no other sources of income.
The system of medical care is below average for Russia although the republic-- where people have suffered from military fighting--must pay particular attention to medical problems. In addition to the wounded, children require special attention during hostilities when they are weakened by sitting endlessly in basements, deprived of nutritious food and in need of psychological rehabilitation. The republic lacks proper medical facilities, tests, medications. International organizations offer invaluable assistance in this regard, but their efforts are simply not enough.
There are catastrophically few places available in schools. There are no desks or textbooks so parents have to buy them at the bazaar. Blind children are deprived of educational opportunities altogether and only 10% of deaf children get to attend special boarding schools.

Security. In 2003, when efforts to resettle IDPs were at their peak, 537 Chechen residents were killed, 595 kidnapped, and 127 disappeared without a trace according to Chechen government statistics. The 9th city hospital alone receives up to 25 patients with traumas from mine explosions and bullet wounds per month on average in 2004. In March seven people were admitted with explosion-related injuries, two of them children, 14 with bullet wounds, half of them police employees, the other half civilians. In April, five children playing in the yard suffered injuries of varied severity.
Kidnappings and extrajudicial killings have not only continued unabated but have also taken a more cynical shade. Thus the authorities repeatedly told relatives of the eight missing residents of Duba-Yurt that they were located at the Hankala military base and would be released within a few days. On April 9th their corpses were found. They had been killed the day before. Along with their bodies was that of another Duba-Yurt resident abducted in Grozny but killed along with the rest. No official explanation followed. (Appendix 5).
Another example is the March 18 abduction and killing of Timur Rizvanovich Hambulatov in the Savelev village of the Nursk region of the Chechen Republic. This was a rare case when the body was neither unearthed by residents nor tossed into the street by the perpetrators but discovered by the regional prosecutor in an official institution (at a cell at the district police office) completely disfigured. According to information the relatives received from unofficial sources, Timur Hambulatov was delivered to the district police office by employees of the Federal Security Service in the most serious condition. Police employees called a doctor, but Timur died without ever regaining consciousness. His admission was never even recorded in the registration book. (Appendix 6- 3 photographs).
Nor did the rocket-bomb strikes against mountain villages cease. On April 8, the Damaev family – a mother with five children from 9 months to five years old – was killed by an aerial bomb that struck them directly.
Over the past few years, the living situation in the republic has become so dire that many Chechen residents have lost all hope of ever regaining peace and certainty that they will live to see tomorrow in their own homeland. The Russian speaking population continues to leave the republic; only 14,500 of them remain today, many of them, particularly the young, stay only because they do not have the means to relocate and establish themselves in a new place and they cannot count on the support of the federal government.
For Chechens, leaving the republic itself does not resolve the critical problem of safety. Thus many try to leave the Russian Federation altogether.

IDPs in temporary placement points in the Chechen Republic
April 2004

Tired of living like nomads, little by little people are starting to return home and try to somehow organize their lives, the more so since the conditions in Ingushetia are becoming more acute and more like those that have developed in Chechnya itself. Even some residents of mountain villages are returning to their homes, first and foremost the elderly who hope to receive compensation for their destroyed housing. Still, if at the moment of inspection the owners are not home, they might be crossed off the list of candidates for compensation.
According to the data of the Migration Affairs Administration of the Chechen Republic, 235,000 IDPs are registered under form # 7 on Chechen territory. Of these, 33,000 – or 5,800 families – live in 33 temporary placement points. 8141 people – 1,434 families – have arranged private rental agreements. The rest have been relocated to places of residence in the private sector. The only assistance they received – bread – has recently been discontinued. Bread producers simply refuse to sell their goods for the old price of 6 rubles a roll. The Migration Affairs Administration of the Chechen Republic notes that, as a result, funds are no longer being set aside in the federal budget to finance bread production and delivery for this category of citizens.
The conditions in temporary placement points in terms of safety, nutrition, medical care, education, daily life, and the sanitation-epidemiological situation remain extremely unsatisfactory.
It comes as no surprise that after people are relocated from the temporary placement points on the territory of Ingushetia, the government largely loses interest in them.
The food ration allotted in February was significantly reduced in view of the unemployment plaguing the republic and the fact that most IDPs receive humanitarian assistance exclusively through the migration services. International humanitarian organizations, the Red Cross and the Danish Refugee Council, help invalids of the 1st and 2nd groups as well as pensioners over 70 years old. In consequence, IDPs face an acute shortage of food. Furthermore, they are frequently given products whose expiration date has passed.
Over the past month, temporary placement points have provided the following products calculated to satisfy the needs of one person for a month.
1. Stewed meat – 3 cans
2. Condensed milk – 12 cans
3. Oil – 2 bottles
4. Tea – 1 package
There is no flour, grain, or sugar on the list, and no explanation of these omissions has been provided. In addition, people have noticed that the prices for products obtained for them continue to mount while the sum set aside for their housing and nutritional needs remains the same, 15 rubles per person per day. Although each person is supposed to receive half a loaf of bread a day, in reality it is given out very irregularly.

Living conditions in temporary placement points
Of course, at first sight, a room in a brick building is better than a tent, but residents feel that living conditions in temporary placement points are actually much tougher. Rooms halfway below the ground in the temporary placement point set up in a former kindergarten on B. Hmelnitskiy street are damp and practically unheated. Many residents have developed chronic illnesses. Moreover, the residents of this temporary placement point were given mattresses stuffed with fiberglass. The FMS is aware of this fact and has tried to investigate what happened. In the end, they learned only which storehouse the mattresses came from but how they got there remains a mystery. Far from all the mattresses were replaced, and many people still use them today, covering them with blankets.

1. Rooming of IDPs
The IDPs are arranged in temporary placement points according to a calculation of 3.2 sq. m. per person. This leads to overcrowding in rooms and consequently to unsanitary conditions.
A typical example of the treatment of IDPs as second-class people is their placement in the newly opened temporary placement point “Okruzhnoi,” which consists of a complex of 120 small prefabricated houses, most of which are still undergoing construction. The little town itself is not yet equipped for life. Residents must carry water to their homes from 100-200 meters away.
Each house has four rooms and was initially intended to be a single-family residence. However, four families now live in each house, one per room, notwithstanding the fact that the area of some rooms is no more than 12 sq. m. There are as many as 20-22 residents in most houses. The crowded conditions lead to conflicts among neighbors and contribute to the spread of infection. Although the assumption is that this housing is only temporary, reconstruction and the payment of compensation move so slowly that for many, “temporary” placement could last a lifetime. Moreover, it is surprising how irrationally financial resources are used. A prefabricated house costs 780,000 rubles to build while compensation for a destroyed house is only 300,000 rubles.
In the Disaster Relief Medical Center building at 56 Sochinskaya street in Grozny 8 families (more than 30) people reside unofficially, among them 3 invalids, 10 children, and pensioners. These families returned in 2000 from the Republic of Ingushetia at the Chechen authorities’ call. In keeping with the decision of the head of the administration at the time they settled in the indicated building, repairing part of the premises on their own. Since the builder was designated for use by the Center, the leadership has been demanded that the citizens vacate the building.
The atmosphere of tension between the two sides remains to this day. After the Human Rights Center “Memorial” appealed on the residents’ behalf to the RF presidential Human Rights Commission, Chechen Migration Affairs Administration staff member, Ramzan Movsarov visited the residents. He offered the residents relocation to a temporary placement point on the border with Ingushetia in Sernovodskaya village. Naturally, they refused since their lives are tied to the Oktyabrsk area of Grozny: they receive pensions and salaries here, their children attend school, some are repairing their houses. With this the Migration Affairs Administration concern for the residents’ fate ended.
2. Water supply
In most recently opened temporary placement points water reservoirs or water containers are not installed. In many of the points drinking water and water used for cooking comes from barrels intended for non-potable water. Whenever possible families try to stock up on drinking water from nearby sources. For instance, IDPs living in the temporary placement point at 11 Malgobekskaya street obtain water 300 meters away from their houses and, even so, are forced to wait in long lines and endure the resentment of local residents. Whereas in the past water was delivered to temporary placement points twice a day, recently, people have remained without water for days at a time.

3. Electricity and gas
All the temporary placement points have electricity, but the pressure is very low. Thus on days when gas is turned off, it is impossible to prepare food using electric plates.
Gas is provided in all temporary placement points, but it is often cut off with no prior warning and turned back on with no warning as well. As a result, in November 2002 a temporary placement point building on Novatorov street was partially destroyed and one resident was killed.

4. Health and sanitation conditions
Most temporary placement points lack sewer systems, showers and laundry amenities. Due to the absence of water pipes and plumbing, residents must not only carry clean water up stairs to high floors but must also carry used water back down to the street. In many temporary placement points, there is no water disposal system even in the kitchens.
The lack of shower facilities renders bathing and laundry impossible and breeds intolerably unhygienic conditions in many temporary placements points. To ameliorate this desperate situation, one of the superintendents at a temporary placement point, on his own initiative, converted a kitchen to a bathing and laundry room.
The impossibility of using toilets at night (temporary placement points cannot be entered or exited between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.) causes great physical hardship to residents, particularly the children and the elderly.

5. Medical care.
Some temporary placement points continue to lack functional medical units. The people living in them do not receive the necessary primary medical care. In the rest, medical units work around the clock. Most of their employees are trained as nurses, and their task consists of providing first aid and referring patients to the hospital, when necessary. Delivering a patient to the hospital for qualified medical assistance poses a risk to the lives of those who undertake it. The medication provided by the Ministry of Health is insufficient even to provide exceptional care. Painkillers and antibiotics are most acutely needed. Medical assistance is best organized where “Peace Doctors” are working.
According to medical unit staff, the number of people with respiratory illnesses has grown to a critical level, in connection with the low temperature (due to a number of factors, most temporary placement centers had no heat during the cold season) and dampness in the rooms. Doctors observe heart ailments, inflammatory processes, and anemia from insufficient vitamins in temporary placement points. Conditions adverse to health such as overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, lack of amenities for personal hygiene contribute to the rise of infections.

6. Education
No continuing education has been organized for schoolchildren relocated to temporary placement points on Chechen Republic territory. First of all, there is no agreement between Chechen authorities and nearby schools as to the admission of arriving children. Frequently, schools already operating beyond capacity refuse to accept more children. Secondly, when leaving the tent camps in the Republic of Ingushetia, many schoolchildren had to leave their textbooks, and they are not being given new ones. And parents do not have the means to buy these textbooks for their children. Many children do not attend school because their refugee life has caused them to fall so far behind. Many cannot attend school because they do not have clothes to wear.

7. Safety
On paper, the residents of temporary placement points are safer that other Chechen residents because they have security guards. However, there have been armed attacks on many temporary placement points. In those cases, the guards have been unable to summon help because they have no radio communications and they cannot repel the attackers themselves because, after a number of such instances, the leadership took away their weapons.
Here are a few examples of what is happening at temporary placement points.
On the night of May 25, 2003, a large group of soldiers invaded the temporary placement point at 47 Kirov street. The building was surrounded by armed vehicles and the military on all sides. The soldiers broke into rooms and grabbed young men and women. They wanted to take them somewhere but refused to answer exactly where. Only thanks to members of the special task force unit, local supporters of President Kadyrov who happened to be visiting one of the point’s residents, was the tragedy prevented.
Yet the trubles besetting the residents of this temporary placement point did not end here. A second attack took place half a year later on January 8, 2004 at about 7 p.m. Masked soldiers of unknown military allegiance but seemingly Chechens by their speech, invaded the temporary placement point and wreaked havoc for a long time. They beat elderly people, women and children. The security with one gun for two people could not withstand such a large military assault. The guards themselves were severely beaten. The reasons for the attack remain unknown.
On April 1, 2004, a man armed with a gun entered the temporary placement point on Okruzhnaya street in Grozny and demanded that he be given the builders’ salary. When people began to gather, drawn by the bookkeeper’s cries, he opened fire. As a result, husband and wife, Adam Ahmadov and Malika Kurbanova received bullet wounds to the legs. They had returned from the tent camp “Sputnik” in Ingushetia only the day before. Having inflicted these injuries, the perpetrator ran away from the place of the incident. Behind the temporary placement point fence he was greeted by accomplices, and those who tried to pursue them had to retreat when the bandits brandished their weapons.

IV. The situation of Chechnya residents in the Republic of Ingushetia

In spite of the constant and meticulous attention of international and Russian nongovernmental organizations as well as UNHCR representatives on the situation of Chechen IDPs in Ingushetia, the authorities have been able to realize their long-term plans. Since the summer of 2003 the “Bella,” “Alina,” “Bart,” and “Sputnik” camps have been closed down. There remains only one tent camp for refugees on the territory of Ingushetia, “Satsita,” and its closing cannot be far behind.
In August of 2003, even according to data provided by the Republic of Ingushetia migration organs taking into account only registered IDPs, a large number of people continued to reside in the camps:
“Bart” – 1911 people (207 tents),
“Sputnik” – 3710 people (390 tents),
“Alina” – 1689 people (190 tents)
“Bella” – 764 people (155 tents),
“Satsita” – 2555 people (418 tents).

Constant warning signs have issued from the camps. Their residents complained that, as happened with the liquidation of the camp “Iman” in the village of Aki-Yurt* in November 2002, representatives from the Chechen government’s Committee for refugee problems visit the camps non-stop. They demand the return of Chechen residents and threaten that the camp will be razed by bulldozers, that provision of foodstuffs will cease, and that no cars will be provided to carry out personal property. At the same time, residents continued to be taken off the records, removed from the lists of those receiving assistance, have had their gas and electricity turned off and have faced other forms of pressure. Attempts to achieve justice through the court system have proven fairly ineffective: the government neglects its responsibilities toward IDPs. (Appendix 8). The atmosphere reached a level of extreme anxiety. People agreed to leave out of desperation, but there were some who remained, clearly declaring their unwillingness to return. These were mainly people of higher social and educational standing who were capable of defending their own rights.
UNHCR and NGO representatives worked in the camps, explaining to people their right to refuse to return to a place where their lives were immediately threatened. These activities have been irritating the authorities who constantly accuse NGOs of instigation.
Representatives of the RF presidential Commission on Human Rights have visited the region several times. In January 2004, a report was issued on the situation concerning return.
The public attention drawn to the problem of coerced return of IDPs to Chechnya somewhat migrated the process. With the elimination of one camp the more persistent residents would move to another. Some of them were often alternative placements in Ingushetia. Nonetheless, the resettlement process was extremely traumatic for all IDPs and cannot be viewed as a voluntary one.
“Bella” was the first camp to be dismantled; it was completely destroyed by September 2003. A public committee formed in the camp was fairly active in drawing attention to the developments unfolding there, and intervention from the outside yielded some results. One group of people was resettled in the “Satsita” camp, another section given temporary shelter in high-density settlement points in Ingushetia. On such place consisted of little house built by the French organization “Doctors Without Borders,” in the so-called “Oskanovkiy garages.” The story of refugee resettlement to these garages is almost tragicomic. The often justified mistrust of the authorities on the part of IDPs combined with foul odors and rumors of purported poisonous chemicals storage in the camp led a fraction of those recently resettled to experience all the symptoms of poisoning. All were ordered to return, but some refused. People were forcefully returned to the site where the tents had already been removed and left under the open sky.
Those resettled to “Satsita” were promised that they would be included in the lists of those receiving food assistance even in the event that they had already been removed from these lists in “Bella.” This turned out to be a hoax, and people found themselves once again removed from the lists and with no means to live on. In October, representatives of the Ministry for Emergency Situations distributed washing agents. Displaced person from “Bella” were not on their lists. The camp superintendent refused to accept any aid from which some were excluded. When IDPs appealed to the migration organs of the Republic of Ingushetia to reenter their names on the lists, they learned that in September they had already been listed among those who had returned to Chechnya. This constant struggle for survival characterizes IDPs’ lives to this very day.
When “Bella” was being liquidated, many residents of “Alina,” not wanting to follow in the footsteps of their neighbors and waste efforts on futile resistance, began to sign statements concerning their return to Chechnya. When IDPs from “Bella” succeeded in gaining permission to resettle in “Satsita,” some wanted to withdraw their statements but were unable to do so.
Nevertheless, the controversy surrounding the destruction of the “Bella” camp catalyzed a change in the approach to the ongoing process of return. IDPs were promised that they would be paid compensation for their housing and property out of line. This also made it easier to close the “Alina” camp fairly quickly. Part of its residents moved to “Satsita,” part agreed to return to Chechnya. “Bart,” “Sputnik,” and “Satsita” were next in line.
The RF government’s resolution # 404 of July 4, 2003 “On the method of realizing compensation payments” does not provide for any payments to those whose housing was not among those “incapable of reconstruction.” Yet applications for compensation were accepted from IDPs with no regard to whether their housing was included on this list.
The consequences of filing applications soon became apparent. On February 12, representatives of the Migration Affairs Administration of the Chechen Republic arrived in 11 trucks to take away those who had earlier applied for compensation. People refused to leave, citing an agreement according to which they would receive compensation first, and only then return home. The Migration Affairs Administration employees, however, showed them point 7 in the statements they had signed, which reads: “Upon receipt of notification of the receipt of compensation, I agree to leave the camp within 7 days.” Notifications were handed out the very same day and people were assured that upon presenting the notifications they received, they could open an account in any bank on Russian territory where the compensation money would be transferred. It goes without saying that this was not the case and that no one believed it was possible. Thus yet another conflict arose.
When in late January 2004, the Chair of the Commission on Human Rights, Ella Pamfilova and Committee member Svetlana Gannushkina visited the tent camps, they were assured by the authorities of the Chechen Republic as well as the Republic of Ingushetia that not a single person would be returned to Chechnya against his or her will. Yet the “Bart” camp was closed soon after; its residents called Moscow, wrote applications, but nothing helped. Through members of the Commission, they sent inquiries to the FMS of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but the answer was always the same: return is voluntary. This was same answer given in late 2002 at the very moment when the camp “Iman” in Aki-Yurt was being ruthlessly destroyed before the eyes of Svetlana Gannushkina.
The tense atmosphere in the camps repeatedly created widespread panic. The events of March 29th in the “Sputnik” camp offer one vivid illustration. In the morning, Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs employees arrived in trucks. Their threats created the impression among camp residents that the camp was blocked off and that bulldozers had already begun its destruction. Someone called the Nazran reception of the Human Rights Center “Memorial.” From there, a request was sent to Moscow for an immediate inquiry with the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs. Word of the camp’s destruction spread through the media and was harshly criticized as simply inaccurate. However, when “Memorial” staff members arrived at the camp, they found Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs employees who were using threats to coerce IDPs to return to their permanent place of residence. Bulldozers were on site as well, knocking down the toilet facilities and making it clear that the camp would soon be no more. On April 1st this perception became a reality. A fraction of residents who persisted were placed elsewhere in Ingushetia, but there were many who had wanted to stay and were not able to do so.
In liquidating the “Sputnik” camp authorities paid no heed to the families living in the “Aviary,” which had been part of the “Sputnik” camp for a while, but was deemed a separate high-density settlement point a little over a year ago. The family of Fatima Ugurchieva, a mother of seven young children and expecting her eighth, lives there. Beside Fatima’s, a few other families live there as well. The living space is filled with fetid odors from the bird excrement that has permeated the floor. All the residents’ appeals to be housed elsewhere have gone unanswered. They were told that they must wait for “Satsita” to be dismantled. In May relocation assistance was offered to those who agreed to return to Chechnya. Five families who agreed to do so, on the condition that they be allowed to keep the folding houses, were never moved. Meanwhile, their living conditions have deteriorated. Gas and water have been turned off and the refugees are forced to carry water from the neighboring “Satsita” camp, which is nearly two kilometers away. Electricity, though unstable, is still provided. Children of school age have no place to learn since until recently they attended the “Sputnik” camp school, which discontinued its function along with the rest of the camp. The nearest school in the “Satsita” camp refuses to accept the aviary’s children since it is on the verge of closing itself. And parents simply do not have the money to send their children to the school “Rassvet.”
The situation in the “Satsita” camp
By the end of April, the “Satsita” camp officially housed 1,390 people. In addition, nearly 500 refugees who had been unlawfully removed from the lists of the Migration Affairs Administration of the Republic of Ingushetia live in “Satsita.” These are “lost souls” whose existence is ignored by the government with all the consequences that follow from such treatment. Thus if such a person wants to return to Chechnya, he is not provided with any means to transport his belongings. If instead he categorically refuses to return, he is left to establish his life completely on his own, a task for which no one has the resources. For some of these people going to court has proved the only possible solution to their problems. (Appendix 10)
The majority of the camp’s IDP residents intend to return to Chechnya. The reasons for this are obvious.
Systematic psychological pressure, acts geared to inspire fear, and cleansing operations in camps have created a situation where people have despaired of vindicating their rights and come to terms with the inevitability of return to Chechnya, although they admit that they are afraid to return to a place where people disappear almost every day and where their children will not be safe. To suggestions of relocating to high-density settlement points they answer that it would be pointless since this is still only a temporary shelter from which, after some time, they would once again be displaced. The events of the last few years provide ample support for such conclusions.
Many IDPs return in order to receive compensation but it is no secret even to them that the authorities are using promises of payment to lure them. Everyone is convinced that they will not receive more than 50% of their compensation, and thus many harbor no illusions about reconstructing their own housing but hope only that they will have an opportunity to rent an apartment in Ingushetia for some time and provide their children with some temporary modicum of security.
Registered IDPs from “Satsita” who have declared their determination to remain in Ingushetia are promised alternative housing. By the end of April they have been offered the following options for relocation:
-the territory of the “Marketing Service” camp (in the Sleptsovsk village) where 7 rooms in all are available.
-the high-density settlement point “Angusht” (Nazhran). No one speaks of the actual number of spots available, but there is constant talk of its enlargement. Authorities insist that some international organization is planning to build addition rooms there that would supposedly be available to IDPs from “Satsita.” People are very concerned that that realistically these rooms do not yet exist, and only days remain until the camp’s closure. They are also troubled by the fact that the residents of “Angusht” were informed in early spring that the area would be closed, and it was suggested that they should begin to look for housing on their own. For several weeks, there was electricity nor gas in Angusht.
-the Migration Affairs Administration of the Republic of Ingushetia has additionally informed people that they will be offered housing in other high-density settlement points where places will become available as people leave for Chechnya. Unfortunately, practical experience shows that places open up in high-density settlement points not because families voluntarily return home but because they are arbitrarily removed from the lists. (Same Appendix)
Furthermore, as the liquidation of other camps has already demonstrated, the promises of authorities tend sadly to turn out to be empty ones. This was the case during the liquidation of the tent city “Sputnik” in March.
Many were promised relocation to the “Rassvet” where long before the end of March all the rooms had already been filled by an earlier wave of refugees from “Sputnik.”
Others were promised housing in the “Marketing Service” camp (Sleptsovsk) although there were no more spots, and four families who had agreed to move there were settled in an altogether different high-density settlement point called “Magazin,” which though technically under the same as “Marketing-Service” is located at a fair distance from the camp itself. It bears noting that when refugees began to move to “Magazin,” the floors had not even been laid yet, which speaks to the rushed manner in which this high-density settlement point for resettlement had been formed.
The residents of “Satsita” were offered to move to the high-density settlement point “Semenovod” on the condition that 20 families would move their immediately and on the same day. But they were unable to investigate the conditions there beforehand and did not dare to move right away. Later on, their request to move was refused. As an exception, on the last day of March, 4 families out of 11 who had not succumbed to threats and been sent back to Chechnya were finally resettled in “Semenovod” where the conditions turn out to be better than in other high-density settlement points.
It is patently obviously to everyone involved that return to Chechnya is inevitable. Those who do not want to or are unable due to lack of space to live in temporary placement points are admonished to find private houses for themselves where owners are willing to accept tenants. The Chechen Republic Migration Affairs Administration has taken upon itself the obligation of negotiating an agreement with such owners and paying them rent. It does not take much imagination to figure out what the sale and rental market looks like in Chechnya, where the housing infrastructure has been decimated and Grozny, once home to 50% of the Republic’s population, lies in ruins.

The lack of assistance to IDPs living in the private sector.
While IDPs understandably do not trust the promises of authorities to pay their rent, such guarantees were also made to residents of Ingushetia who agreed to accept IDPs from Chechnya. Up to this day, the efforts of the authorities have been geared exclusively toward liquidating tent camps on the territory of the Republic of Ingushetia. Practically no one either in the Republic of Ingushetia or in the Chechen Republic has shown any concern for the fate of IDPs residing in the private sector. At the moment, they are not even entitled to the minimal governmental assistance provided IDPs in tent camps; they cannot count on spots in Grozny’s temporary placement points. The only assistance they receive is transportation for themselves and their belongings to their place of permanent residence in Chechnya if they should request it.
The situation of IDPs in Ingushetia is rendered the more problematic by the increasing imposition, over the course of 2003, of the will of Russian as well as local soldiers, first and foremost Chechen ones, as well as enforcement organs on the territory of Ingushetia, including IDP camps. The summer of 2003 when “cleansing” operations rolled through Chechnya, affecting tent camps as well as high-density settlement points housing IDPs, marked the beginning of this process. The possibility cannot be excluded that these events comprise one form of coercing Chechen residents to return. If the level of security in Ingushetia becomes little higher than that in Chechnya, the primary reason for remaining will lose its force. In the appendix, we chronicle the violence in Ingushetia in June 2003 and March 2004. These two sets of materials paint a picture of how armed individuals are imposing their will in Ingushetia and the effect this has had on the lives of IDPs (Appendiсes 10 and 11).
The abduction of Rashid Borisovich Ozdoev (March 2004) who worked as the senior prosecutorial aid and monitored compliance of the Federal Security Service with the law is indicative of the lawlessness and arbitrary imposition of power that has spread throughout Ingushetia. (Appendix 12).

* “On the situation in Russia of Chechen residents who involuntarily left Chechen territory. June 2002-May 2003;” “R-Valent,” M., 2003.

V. The situation of Chechnya residents in regions of the Russian Federation

The situation of Chechen Republic residents in regions of the Russian Federation has not changed significantly over the last year. Very few have been able to settle here on a permanent basis, and the government has failed to create conditions that would facilitate such a process. At the same time, the process of return has not been encouraged as was the case during the first Chechen campaign, when for a period of time those who wished to return had their train tickets paid for. Residents of temporary placement centers, which continue to house a small number of Chechen residents, are an exception. Those leaving such centers receive train tickets to Nazran.
As before, people are trying to get their families to safety as soon as they obtain the minimal means to do so. When settling temporarily in large cities, Chechen residents try to remain as inconspicuous as possible, not to draw attention to themselves, to find temporary unofficial work tending to the ill, cleaning or repair work, small trade, and to place their children in school. They arrive also for medical treatment. This places a high demand on the community organizations that support those needing treatment and persons accompanying them and provide, to the best of their ability, much needed medications that are so desperately lacking in medical institutions today. In the summer months and when the activity of armed formations of every type abates, some Chechen women, in spite of the risk, return to the Chechen Republic to tend a little to their vegetable gardens and to live off of the soil. In this way, the flow continues in both directions although such trips all too often end in tragedy.

Granting of status, registration, passport replacement
The table below illustrates how quickly the legal status of forced migrant is disappearing from year to year. In Ingushetia, where ethnic Ingush people from the suburban area of Northern Ossetia-Alaniya are on the records, this process is slower. But even there, the number of forced migrants has decreased significantly. At the same time, the problems of forced migrants are being decided extremely slowly, and the flow of migrants from the territory of the former Soviet Union into Russia as well as internal displacement continue. Therefore this decrease in the number of forced migrants cannot indicate anything but a purposeful, planned-out government strategy to eradicate this status and a denial of any kind of obligations on the part of the Russian government to this group of people.

By January 1, 2002, there was a total of 625,639 forced migrants in the Russian Federation, 30,950 of those in Ingushetia.

By January 1, 2003, there was a total of 491,898 forced migrants in the Russian Federation, 29,299 of those in Ingushetia.

By January 1, 2004, there was a total of 352,100 forced migrants in the Russian Federation, 27,900 of those in Ingushetia.

Although a forced migrant cannot count on any material assistance, the status gives him a level of certainty in his legal rights: it is easier to obtain registration, to get a job, to avoid arbitrary police action. The latter is a matter of survival for Chechen residents, and this is the most acute problem. The victims of the second wave of military activity in Chechnya, as we described in our 2002 report, were practically uniformly denied forced migrant status.
If earlier the authorities at least complied with the formalities of the procedure receiving requests, considering them, and replying in writing when denying forced migrant status to residents of the Chechen Republic fleeing the war, today it is common for requests not to be accepted at all. In the meanwhile, people are being misinformed about the forced migrant status. They are told that those who receive it do not have a right to placement in temporary placement centers, to registration or to food coupons, in contradiction to norms established by the resolution # 163 of RF Government of 03/03/2001 “On financing the expenses incurred in sustaining and feeding citizens who have temporarily left their permanent places of residence on the territory of the Chechen Republic and are located in places of temporary placement on the territory of the Russian Federation, and also in paying the fare and the carriage of luggage of the indicated citizens to the places of their residence in the Chechen Republic.”
As before, authorities are refusing to extend the forced migrant status of those who have received compensation for lost housing in Chechnya, relying on the excluded* point 19 of the resolution # 510 of the RF Government of April 30, 1997 “On the method of paying compensation for lost housing and/or property to citizens who suffered as a result of the crisis in the Chechen Republic and who left it permanently.”
The story of B.M. Musaev, an invalid of the 2nd group, residing in the temporary placement center in Tambov is a telling one. B.M. Musaev arrived in Tambov during the period of the first Chechen war and received the forced migrant status. The RF law “On forced migrants” requires that the status be extended for each consecutive year after the expiration of the first five. When on February 16, 2003, Musaev’s five year period ended, it was time to consider extending the operation of his status for a year, as to which Musaev wrote a statement. However, the employees of the Migration Affairs Administration convinced him to withdraw his statement, explaining that in extending it he will not receive food coupons. Pursuant to the insistent advice of a “Memorial” lawyer, B.M. Musaev ultimately submitted his statement, which the Migration Affairs Administration then denied, justifying its decision with the fact that he received compensation for lost housing in Chechnya. B.M. Musaev appealed this denial in court. The Oktyabr area court found the Migration Affairs Administration denial to be unlawful and obligated the Administration to extend for a year B.M. Musaev’s forced migrant status, his residency in a temporary placement center and his registration at his place of residence. The area court based its decision on the fact that the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation invalidated point 19 of the RF Government resolution # 510 and the RF government made appropriate changes to the regulation.
Yet the misfortunes of B.M. Musaev did not end here. The Migration Affairs Administration appealed to the regional court, which reversed the decision of the area court, with the justification that over the long period during which B.M. Musaev resided in Tambov, he had no intention of establishing his life there: he did not make a request for permanent housing and did not try to buy housing with the compensation money he received.
The area court once again rendered a verdict in Musaev’s favor, but again on appeal by the Migration Affairs Administration, the civil judicial board of the regional court reversed the area court’s decision.
The area court upheld Musaev’s complaint for a third time, and yet again the Migration Affairs Administration appealed. Finally, the regional court in its determination of 12.30.2003 left the decision of the area court unchanged. The case was remanded to the area court only on January 21, 2004 and Musaev’s forced migrant status was extended up to February 16, 2004, a year from the moment of its expiration. A year was spent in court, the needed decision was finally obtained, but all he could do was start all over again.
On February 10, 2004, B.M. Musaev made a request for the extension of his status for another year. The Migration Affairs Administration rejected his request once again, and Musaev appealed this decision to the Federal Migration Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Moreover, the Migration Affairs Administration refused to accept documents for placement on the housing register, basing its decision on the fact that in his statement Musaev did not mention his former wife and a 22 year-old son. Complying with these dubious requirements, Musaev once again submitted his documents for housing and once again was rejected in connection with his receiving compensation.
Musaev’s pension as an invalid was discontinued due to his lack of registration. During the short period for which his registration had been extended, he simply did not have enough time to officially arrange and receive his pension. As a result, this invalid had no means of subsistence for a year.
Without waiting for an answer from the Federal Migration Service, B.M. Musaev again brought an action in court, demanding that the Migration Affairs Administration’s refusal to extend his status, denial of registration at his place of residence, denial of continued residence in the temporary placement center, and refusal to accept documents regarding enrollment in the housing register be found unlawful. This time in his writ, Musaev demanded that the Migration Affairs Administration be obligated to extend his status until his life is completely established.
In the meanwhile the director of the temporary placement center handed B.M. Musaev a “warning” that as a person who lost his forced migrant status, he must vacate his room in spite of the fact that the decision denying him extension of the status has been appealed in court.
There are many analogous examples in other regions. The story of B.M. Musaev is quite typical – migration organs do everything in their power to decrease the number of forced migrants and court processes stretch out interminably.
Even obvious reasons may not serve as a basis for granting the status of a forced migrant. In Krasnodar, the Hasuev family of 7 was denied forced migrant status. The family was fleeing the persecution and violence of Chechen fighters, targeted at them because they do not practice Islam. In spite of evidence that was submitted confirming the violence that had taken place, the territorial migration organs denied status to every member of the family. The illegality of the denial was considered by courts at two levels; the case was turned over for renewed consideration and finally was dropped due to the declarant’s decision not to continue.
The Migration Affairs Administration of the city police office refused to place on the register and to extend the status of the Getogazov family who came from Ingushetia to stay with relatives in Krasnodar already possessing the forced migrant status.
A “Memorial” lawyer from Cheboksary reports on the ordeals suffered by the Ibragimov family including 7 children. The father, Baha, was deprived of forced migrant status back in 1999, the request for status made by his wife Hadizhat was not even registered. The family left for Chechnya and has not again returned to Chuvashia. Without status, they are surviving only thanks to the assistance of community organizations.
In Kabardino-Balkariya, in the Republic of Dagestan and in the majority of other regions the forced migrant status is not being granted at all, but only extended to a small fraction of those who already have it.
Today, it can be said with a great deal of certainty that there is no access to the process for determining forced migrant status, and those who turn to the authorities instead of receiving application forms are given oral denials on their first visit.

The problems of registration with internal affairs organs (propiska) have always been acute in Russia. Not wishing to comply with the RF law “On the right of citizens to freedom of movement and choice of place of stay and residence,” local authorities promulgate their own unconstitutional norms or limit registration in practice. In this regard, Moscow and Krasnodar Kray remain the worst offenders. Yet other subjects of the federation, following suit, create a host of problems for arriving citizens, particularly for residents of Chechnya. Harsh additional requirements, which were a major topic in previous reports (fingerprints, photographs en face and side-face, additional verifications) remain in effect and neither surprise anyone nor arouse particular indignation.
In Kabardino-Balkaria the procedure for registering at the place of residence is extremely complicated. In addition to documents required by federal law, a citizen seeking registration at the place of residence must submit: 2 photographs, a technical passport of home or apartment ownership; for registration for a period exceeding three months, a rental agreement is required as well as corresponding certificates from the tax inspection regarding the absence of any tax indebtedness on the part of the owner. Also, fingerprints must be taken as a matter of course.
The authorities of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic systematically adopt statutory acts in order to “legalize” discrimination against Chechen residents.
The registration of real property deals with “persons not possessing permanent registration on the territory of the republic” was suspended by decree # 410-P-P dated 11.22.2001 of the parliament of Kabardino-Balkaria “On temporary measures towards limiting the registration of citizens who arrive in the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic for permanent residence,” which on 07.23.2002 was found to contradict to the federal law and invalidated by the supreme court of the republic.
No more than five months later, on 12.26.2002, the Kabardino-Balkaria parliament enacted a decree analogous to the one that had been invalidated, the decree # 566-P-P “On temporary measures for the regulation of migration in the Kabardino-Balkaria republic.” This decree too was invalidated by the supreme court of the republic on 03.13.2003. Nonetheless, almost immediately following this decision, on 04.29.2003, the Nalchick city council of local self-government adopted the decision “On temporary measures towards limiting the registration of citizens arriving in the city of Nalchick to reside permanently,” which limited the ability of newly arriving citizens to register at their place of residence. This decision contains a directive to the registry office of Nalchick city to suspend the registration of marriages in those instances where the individual getting married does not have a permanent registration on the territory of the city of Nalchick, and the registration of births when the child’s parents do not have a permanent registration on the city’s territory.
This same decision lays out measures for establishing control over real property deals on the city’s territory, in which persons who are not Nalchick city residents participate. It recommends that a commission be formed for consideration of registration issues, consisting of representatives of the city’s administration, deputies from the local self-government council, and departments of internal affairs.
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the goal of this decision was to limit the migration of residents of the Chechen Republic to Kabardino-Balkaria.
How is this decision implemented in practice? The involuntary migrant from the Chechen Republic brings all the necessary documents either to the registration chamber of the justice ministry of the Kabardino-Balkaria republic, to the passport and visa service of the city of Nalchick, or to the registry office, where his submission is orally refused and he is told to direct his inquiry to the commission indicated above and to obtain permission to register. He then approaches the commission and is once again denied, “we do not give permissions for registration to persons who are not native to the Kabardino-Balkaria republic.” Of course, no written denial is issued since the commission “documents in writing only favorable decisions.” The only way out is to demand in court that the appropriate registration be given.
At the initiative of a “Memorial” lawyer, on December 2, 2003, R.M. Shamsutdinov submitted a challenge to the decision of the Nalchick city council of local self-government of 04.29.2003 under the article 24 of the RF Civil Procedure Code. On December 26, 2003, the Nalchick city court rendered a decision in which it refused to satisfy the demands of the declarant because the court was not provided with proof that the declarant’s rights were violated by the contested statutory act. On December 29, 2003 the decision was appealed, and on January 14, 2004 the supreme court of Kabardino-Balkaria reversed it and sent the case for renewed consideration to the Nalchick city court, this time with a different composition.
It seems that the passport tables of the Ministry of Internal Affairs have been tacitly instructed from the center to deny registration to migrants from Chechnya under any pretext or, if that fails, to limit it to a minimal duration.
At the passport and visa table in Pyatigorsk, the registration available to Chechens is mainly limited to three months. This regularly happens to the family of A.S. Arakelova even though she has all the necessary documents to register for a longer period of time. Due to this limitation, her family is denied government grants for the children and medical insurance policies since her stay in Pyatigorsk is considered temporary.
In Hasavyurt, Hussain Mussheyhovich Yahiev cannot obtain a registration although he registered his departure from the village of Nozha-Yurt in the Chechen Republic on 01.31.2003, having purchased an apartment house in Hasavyurt. The notary public will not formalize the property ownership due to the absence of registration, which is denied under different pretexts. A “Memorial” lawyer recommended contesting the actions of the passport and visa service in court, but Yahiev categorically refused to do so.
People do not believe that courts will defend their rights; they are afraid to irritate the authorities since they don’t want to risk making their situation even worse. Those few who have the financial capacity for this resort to bribe giving, the usual mechanism. The majority, those who have become impoverished, can only trust in the mercy and good will of people around them.
In this respect, Laila Arsaeva who arrived in Hasavyurt from Chechnya back in 1996 was singularly lucky. This young woman has a two-year child on her hands and no relatives. R.U. Yasieva, a “Memorial” lawyer in Dagestan took an active part in her fate. She helped place the child in a nursery school and get Arsaeva herself employed there. Laila was given the job on the condition that she obtains registration at the place of residence. Rasiat Yasieva agreed to register her at her own place. The head of the administration helped them out and signed the statement. This is a very unusual case in Dagestan, Yasieva remarks. But the path awaiting the documents remains tortuous. First they are submitted to be signed by the head of the administration of the Hasavyurt area; if he gives his permission for the registration, the papers are given to the chief of the district police office; after his verification, all the materials are forwarded to the passport and visa service. Once there, they are verified once again on the computer and if everything adds up, only then will Arsaeva be registered at the place of residence.

Since in 2004 the period of replacement for Soviet passports ended and so did the validity of the old passports, the problem of obtaining and trading in passports has grown significantly more acute for migrants from the Chechen Republic. Emigrants from Chechnya are unlawfully denied new passports in many regions. As a rule, applicants are advised to return to the Chechen Republic where they could supposedly have their passports replaced with no regard to the danger they might face and the large financial expenses they would incur. Replacing passports in Chechnya and obtaining required certificates of leaving is an expensive service.
A “Memorial” lawyer in Tambov addressed the head of the internal affairs administration of the Tambov region, asking him to resolve the issue of replacing and issuing new passports to twenty-three forced migrants from Chechnya. This request was denied with reference to the fact that these individuals did not have certificates of leaving. Among these individuals were 11 people who left Chechnya when they were 7-9 years old and who not only had the right to receive a passport, but were with all certainty expected to be issued one. There was an appeal for assistance to the deputy head of the passport and visa administration of the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs and to the head of the department on citizenship issues, L.E. Gerbanovskiy. By this point, the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs had issued order # 347 dated 05.24.2003 “On documenting certain categories of citizens of the RF with passports,” which allowed documents to be accepted to issue passports according to the place of permanent residence. Nonetheless, complaints against the refusal of the passport and visa service to replace (or issue) passports still had to be lodged in court. Pursuant to court decisions, passports were issued to four teenagers who had reached the age of 14, and three adults received passport replacements.
Kamaldin Shebhamedovich Topaev, an ethnic Chechen who arrived from Dagestan in 1997 turned for help to a lawyer from the “Migration Rights” Network in Smolesnk. Two years ago, he lost his passport and came for a consultation with the director of the police office of Zadneprovsk district of the city of Smolensk with a request for a new passport. He was rudely denied and advised to get a passport in Dagestan. There he had been told to get a passport in Smolensk. With the support of a Network lawyer, Topaev prepared a letter to the director of the passport and visa service of the internal affairs administration of the Smolensk region and received an answer from him that upon the submission of the necessary documents, the issue would be resolved in his favor. At the present time the documents remain in Dagestan.
Due to the loss of her documents, N.S. Arutunova from Pyatigorsk found herself in a paradoxical situation. While fleeing the Chechen Republic in 1998, she lost her passport and her birth certificate. A Network lawyer sent an inquiry to the Grozny registry office after which a duplicate of her birth certificate was sent to the Pyatigorsk registry office. However, the latter refuses to give Arutunova her certificate because she does not have a passport. In turn, the passport and visa service refuses to restore her passport due to her lack of a birth certificate. Arutunova tried to find a way out of this vicious cycle by requesting that the passport and visa service demand the birth certificate from the registry office, but her request remains unsatisfied. When Arutunova inquired with the passport and visa service administration of the internal affairs administration of Stavropol Krai, she was told that she has to go to court to establish her identity. This response is currently being appealed in court.
Migrants are likewise denied other documents without grounds. Thus in Cheboksary, Mavlid Danilovich Basaev, a migrant from the Chechen Republic and a participant in the liquidation of the Chernobyl disaster, cannot get the certificate of a liquidator. He is denied under made-up pretexts or outright told that such certificates are not drawn up for Chechens.
It is not necessary to share the last name of Shamil Basaev, the most odious warlord of the Chechen armed militias. There are more and more reports of Russian residents in the Chechen Republic experiencing the same difficulties while trying to formalize their status, passport and other documents. Any emigrant from Chechnya is the subject of suspicion and becomes an undesirable element from the perspective of the representatives of the federal authorities.
In Pyatigorsk, Russian refugees are denied extension of their forced migrant status in connection with receiving compensation for lost property. There are cases of unlawful seizures of passports, documents lost as a result of military activities are never replaced.
Marina Ivanovna Petrovskaya left the Chechen Republic in 1991 but was never taken off the registration records. She resided in the Predgorniy area where in June 1999 during a passport check a disctrict officer unlawfully seized her passport due to the lack of registration at the place of residence. Petrovskaya is an invalid of the 2nd group because of her vision impairment, and thus she lived without a passport until she turned to a lawyer in the “Migration Rights” Network. In June 2003, the lawyer sent an inquiry to the police office of the Predgorniy district about restoring the passport. At the present time, the case has been forwarded for consideration in the Stavropol passport and visa service administration.
Raisa Vasilievna Solnyshkina and her family members are forced migrants from Chechnya. Their passports were due to expire in 2003. In September of 2003, the Solnyshkins went to the migration affairs administration of the city police office of Stavropol krai with a request for an extension of their status. They were denied on the basis of paragraph 4, article 5 of the RF law “On forced migrants” in connection with their receiving compensation for lost housing and property. This denial was appealed in court, and the court obligated the migration affairs administration of the police office of Stavropol krai to extend the duration of the Solnyshkins’ forced migrant status.
Yuriy Andreevich Kotlyarov, a migrant from Chechnya and an invalid of the 1st group today received a minimal pension pursuant to the fact that the archives of many enterprises were destroyed during military hostilities and it is impossible to obtain a statement of his earnings. According to the joint letter of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development and the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation dated 11.27.2001, when an enterprise’s archives are lost, documents attesting to the person’s actual earnings are acceptable: job cards, certificates of the Communist party membership, Komsomol membership, labor union membership, etc. U.A. Kotlyarov retained his union membership card that indicates all the fees he paid. But he received a rejection in response to his written request to the pension fund to recalculate his pension on the basis of these numbers because military activities are not among the circumstances enumerated in the letter (floods, earthquakes, hurricanes). At the present time, a new inquiry has been sent to the pension fund. When a negative response is again received, it will be appealed in court.
Vasiliy Nikolaevich Tenikin, a migrant from the Chechen Republic who obtained the status of a forced migrant after suffering violence at the hands of armed fighters lives in St. Petersburg. The central district police office unlawfully denied him passport replacement. He was advised to make a trip to Chechnya and exchange the passport there even though it was clear that such a visit posed a clear danger to his life and health. The testimony of a “Migration Rights” Network lawyer with respect to this case is contained in Appendix 13.

Coercive return to Chechnya
While international and nongovernmental organizations constantly monitor what happens to IDPs from Chechnya residing in tent camps in Ingushetia, very little information is available about the kinds of pressure exerted on IDPs in temporary placement centers in other Russian regions. Yet over the last year, measures geared toward coercing the return of IDPs have grown more forceful. This is most evident in the central Russian regions – Voronezhskaya, Tambovskaya, Tverskaya, and Bryanskaya where temporary placement centers are located.
It is possible that the lack of attention to residents of temporary placement centers has to do with the fact that there are relatively few of them. Their number has never exceeded 1000. The victims of the first wave of hostilities in Chechnya were housed in temporary placement centers that were especially organized for them. These were principally Russians since Chechens left for villages that the soldiers, at that point, left untouched. However, by the end of 1999 there was a clear declaration that the temporary placement centers were not intended for IDPs from Chechnya. These migrants and the NGOs that supported them practically had to fight for these centers, striving to fill the available spots.
The coercion of return to Chechnya is characterized by economic, administration, and police pressure on residents.
In the temporary placement center of the city of Voronezh there are several parents with many children who do not want to return to their previous places of residence out of fear for their lives and the lives of their children. Today the migration affairs administration by manipulating the existing laws at the departmental level deprives these families of material support, without which they are virtually incapable of surviving.
The story of the Ozniev family provides a vivid example of this struggle for survival.
H.A. Ozniev, born in 1962, together with his wife and three children (born 1989, 1991, and 1992) was forced to leave Grozny in October of 1999.
The family arrived in the Voronezh region and in December 1999 it was placed in the temporary placement center for the involuntary migrants of the city of Voronezh directed by the migration service of the Republic of Ingushetia. At the same time, H.A. Ozniev applied to the migration service of the Voronezh region for forced migrant status for all of his family members, but the application was denied. His family was indicated in the list of temporary placement point residents as “having temporarily left their permanent place of residence on the territory of the Chechen Republic and staying in a temporary placement location on the territory of the Russian Federation.”
Until February 2003, they were supported with funds allocated in the federal budget in accordance with the resolution of the RF Government # 163 of 03.03.2001 “On financing expenses for supporting and feeding citizens who have temporarily left their places of permanent residence in the Chechen Republic and are staying in temporary placement locations on the territory of the Russian Federation,” which gave this family with many children some means to live on.
Upon the decision of the migration affairs administration of the Voronezh region of 02.21.2003, the city police office took away the family’s privileges of paid food and lodging in the temporary placement center.
Over the course of the six months following this decision, H.A. Ozniev corresponded with the federal migration service organs, trying to clarify the legal status of his family as it pertains to their right to have expenditures for food and basic living needs be covered from the federal budget.
In July of 2003 he received a final rejection from the migration affairs administration of the police office of Voronezh region based on a casuistic interpretation of norms contained in the resolution of the RF government # 163 and in the “standard provision on temporary placement centers for forced migrants,” reaffirmed by the RF government resolution # 53 of 01.22.1997.
The basis for the migration affairs administration’s decision was a letter from one of the subdivisions of the federal migration service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs – the crisis situation administration.
According to the highest migration organ, the temporary placement center is, on the one hand, intended for forced migrants and is not a place for the temporary placement of individuals who left Chechnya. Its residents therefore do not fall under the resolution of the RF government # 163. On the other hand, IDPs do not have the status of forced migrant, meaning that the resolution of the RF government # 53 does not apply to them either.
H.A. Ozniev contested the decision of the migration affairs administration of the police office of the Voronezh region in the court of Levoberezhniy district of the city of Voronezh. On 12.24.2003, the city court refused to satisfy his claim, agreeing with the decision of the migration affairs administration without looking into the rightfulness and the legal persuasive force of the interpretation of RF government provisions recommended by the crisis situation administration, which was based not on the actual situation of people on the ground, but the formal status of the temporary placement center.
On appeal, H.A. Ozniev indicated that the members of his family uncontrovertibly belong to the category of people who left their places of permanent residence on the territory of Chechen Republic while the temporary placement center just as undisputably is among the “locations of their temporary placement.” It was this very fact that allowed the family to receive free food and board in the temporary placement center up until 02.21.2003.
H.A. Ozniev likewise indicated that the legal status of the housing (temporary placement points, rent from juridical or physical persons, federal temporary placement centers) in which people who left the Chechen Republic after 10.01.1999 are temporarily placed cannot determine people’s rights when it comes to the issue of their support at federal expense.
However, in spite of these appellate arguments, a decision in favor of the Ozniev family is unlikely and the judicial process continues.
The Yasaev family is also seeking legal defense to no avail.
A third family, the Shaipovs, were forced to leave the temporary placement center.
The same method of squeezing people out is used by the migration affairs administration of the Tambov region.
People residing in temporary placement centers received coupons for food calculated at 15 rubles per person per day over the course of 2001 under the resolution of the RF government # 163. Already in 2002 people had to bring suit to recover monetary compensation for food coupons. At that point the courts were satisfying all the complaints.
In 2003 in the Tambov temporary placement center, the coupons were being distributed irregularly. The people residing there went to the leadership of the temporary placement center and the migration affairs administration with the request that they be given coupons for food, referring to the fact that the duration of resolution # 163 had been extended. The answers that were received contained rejections that were virtually groundless.
22 people brought suit in court to collect the debt owed on the coupons. All the actions were considered by the same judge who had upheld them in 2002. But his attitude toward the complainants has changed completely. By their accounts, he cynically declared that “they should work instead of hanging round our necks.” Meanwhile the judge failed to explain the process for appealing his decision. To the contrary, he misled those who declared that they disagreed with the decision by telling them that they should wait until the court sends them the decision and that this would take some time, making it likely that they would exceed the prescribed time limit for an appeal.
Residents of the temporary placement center in Orenburg likewise complain of the absence of food coupons and social assistance. The same is true of the temporary placement center “Serebryanniki” in Tverskaya oblast. Since it is located not far from Moscow, its residents frequently visit the “Civic Assistance” Committee. From time to time, the committee brings humanitarian aid to the center and provides material assistance to the residents who do not have food coupons. This type of work requires smooth relations with the director of the center, Galina Evgenevna Hityaeva, who, like other directors, receives strict instructions and no funding from the federal migration authorities, yet still remains the main target for the expressions of discontent on the part of IDPs. Thus, even putting aside financial hardship, the residents and employees of the temporary placement center are in a constant state of anxiety.
Administration pressure on temporary placement center residents has increased, with the goal of pushing them toward return to Chechnya.
In early March 2004, in the Tambov temporary placement center each resident who did not have the status of a forced migrant was handed an official “warning” that he would be evicted from the center according to administrative procedure. Such warnings were given to Ayzan Saydalievna Mavtaeva, Laysa Mimalatovna Abubakarova, Daud Abderahmanovich Ahmadov and others – 42 people in all, among them invalids and 82 years old Petimat Abuhadzhieva. All this while there are empty rooms in the Tambov center.
On March 25 and 26, a migration affairs administration commission consisting of a department head, two migration affairs administration employees, the director of the temporary placement center, a superintendent, and a district inspector summoned residents who do not have forced migrant status for an interview. It also summoned those who have the status of forced migrant and are registered in the temporary placement centers but who live in private apartments because no room for them was found in the center when they were expelled from the hotel “Tolna.” This hotel was rented for Chechen refugees by the RF Ministry of Federation at the beginning of the second Chechen war, and then “vacated” from them. Commission members asked about the means of subsistence available to the residents, about their source and permitted themselves comments to the effect that the clothes the residents wore did not look like those of refugees. They insistently advised return to Chechnya.
In defense of the rights of IDPs from Chechnya, L.H. Fedyushkina, board chairman of a community organization helping refugees and involuntary migrants from the Chechen Republic, approached the leadership of the migration affairs administration at the police office in charge. Yet the migration affairs administration leadership refused to give any substantive answers to her inquiries, declaring: “we don’t know about any community organization and don’t care to know about it. As far as we are concerned, you don’t exist.” And in response to the appeals and complaints of the organization’s board and its members, which cited violations of migrants’ rights and abuses on the part of migration affairs administration employees, the department head of the regional justice administration, V.M. Gornostaev, initiated an investigation of the community organization’s own work.
A “Memorial” lawyer working in the Bryansk region informs us that the migration affairs administration of the police office in that region conducted purposeful campaigns to return Chechens to Chechnya. There were even announcements in the media that passage to the Chechen Republic would be paid for by the migration affairs administration. In reality, this turned out to be no more than a lure, since the payment of fares to people leaving for Chechnya was denied.
Increasingly, severe measures in temporary placement centers become another form of pressure. In the Tambov center, a passport check is systematically conducted at 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
At the entrance, a policeman stationed exclusively at the temporary placement center sits at the checkpoint.
When the time comes for extending registration in the Tambov temporary placement center, only Chechens are required to go through the offices of the criminal investigation department’s senior district inspector. In the first two cabinets, the district officer and other department officers “reveal” people with terrorist tendencies or try to elicit similar information. A third officer takes fingerprints. Such violations of rights are characteristic only of the treatment of ethnic Chechens.
In 2003 more than 50 Chechens left the Bryansk region. This was mainly families with many children, those of Visita Lukmanovich Inderbiev (6 people), Haspi Duchaevich Hapsiev (8 people), Ruslan Zaindievich Didaev (7 people), Hozhahmet Hasmagoimedovich Idrisov (6 people) and others who left for Chechnya and other Russian regions. This in spite of the fact that all of these families were able to obtain forced migrant status through the courts. Nonetheless they were forced to leave the Bryansk region for reasons related to discrimination. None were able to find work: as soon as employers learned of their nationality, they were turned down. The authorities refused to provide them with housing, even though they were enlisted in the housing line. The children did not receive their government allowances. Moreover the Chechen families suffered from heightened nationalism in everyday life: the children were beaten and insulted in school.
In 1999-2000 there were between 150 and 200 Chechens in Chuvashia; today there are less than 40. Some families, having visited Chechnya for a short while, came back. One example is the family of Vaha and Hadizhat Ibragiov who have 7 children. The husband was deprived of his forced migrant status and fired from his job back in 1999. Courts at every level left the decision in place. Nonetheless, they came back, but try not to interact with administrative organs, relying instead on the help of community organizations: the children’s fund and women’s organizations.

Detentions, searches, unlawful demands

Migrants from Chechnya in many Russian regions do not feel that they are safe, primarily due to constant pressure on the part of internal affairs bodies. Russia’s southern regions, in particular, are characterized by a significant strengthening of the police chokehold.
A flagrant case of arbitrary action toward students is reported by a “Memorial” HRC Network lawyer from Krasnodar. At the end of August 2003, a campaign of detaining Chechens was initiated in the city. Among its victims were those students who study in Krasnodar at the direction of the ministry of education and the ministry of internal affairs of the Chechen Republic. Modus operandi of the police officers is as follows: they detain young people at checkpoints while verifying documents or even in dormitories, where they search their rooms. They are then brought to temporary detention wards, accused of hooliganism, and a Justice of the Peace, without ever seeing the accused, sentences them to five or ten days’ arrest. Having served the term, the young man leaves only to be grabbed again outside the gates and again sentenced to five to ten days. Here is the list of students who have been detained in Krasnodar: Aslan Suleymanovich Ediev (born 1982), Suleyman Adamovich Akbulatov (born 1982), Bislan Ediev (born 1982); Ibragim Saydahmedovich Hashimov (born 1977); Rizvan Adamovich Shahbulatov (born 1982); Ahmed Hasimikov (born 1980).
All of them study at the law institute, having enrolled at the direction of the Chechen Republic Ministry of Internal Affairs as participants in an antiterrorist operation. They were detained on suspicion that they had participated in terrorist acts.
What follows is a short rendition of these events in the words of Havadzhi, one of the detained students (his last name and other information are on file).
While exiting Krasnodar, the car in which Havadzhi and two of his uncles were riding was stopped at a police post, and they were told to present their documents. Both of the uncles had Russian registration so they passed the check. However Havadzhi’s passport was taken to the post, and then the policemen came back with a paper indicating that the young man was suspected of a crime, but not mentioning which, as the corresponding section was left blank. An operations squad was summoned, it took Havadzhi to the department and fingerprinted him. Three hours later, they delivered him to the Prikubansk department and without presenting any additional justification, put him “into the cage” (behind the bars).
A day later at midnight he was taken out to be questioned. For a semblance of propriety, he was asked some pointless questions and then offered a police report to sign without reading. Being an educated person, Havadzhi read it.
The report stated that he was found drunk in the city center, disrupting the peace and swearing, that he was approached by police officers and asked to present his documents, that in response he was rude and insulting to them, and that he didn’t react to their warnings. For this he would be sentenced to 10 days’ arrest. Havadzhi refused to sign the report and was again confined. The judge was supposed to arrive the following day, but he waited in vain.
By the evening Havadzhi was transferred to a special detention center where there were three other students, two Chechens and a Cherkes. Before leaving, he asked to see the judge’s determination because he was afraid that he would be accused of terrorism, but the determination was the same as the charge in the report though the sentence differed, it was 5 days. Havadzhi memorized the name of the Justice of the Peace, Mr. Denyuzhkin.
Their time was up, all four students were taken out, the report was compiled, their belongings were returned, and after that they were driven back to the criminal investigation department and turned over to an officer named Misha. He said he had an order from higher up, from a general of the federal security service, to detain them again, with a suggestion of planting some ammunition, drugs, etc as evidence. The students were shocked.
Havadzhi asked if they could just pay a fine. Misha gave it some thought and came up with 1,500 rubles “a head.” The boys collected money in their dormitory, paid the ransom price and were released.
Havadzhi mentions another Chechen student from the cell were he was detained. During a search of his dormitory room, a baseball bat was found, which was confiscated and then officially dubbed cold-arms. Upon serving his term, the student had to go to the investigator for questioning; he had his summons in hand.
When Havadzhi’s uncle came to find out what happened to his nephew, he was also detained, fingerprinted and held for a few hours.
All this took place between August 30 and September 4, 2003.
The police said that they had orders, all the Chechens they can find, without exceptions, should go behind the bars. Add whatever charges you want and don’t provide any lawyers.
Such was the lesson in jurisprudence, Krasnodar-style, that the law institute students received.

Given the rampant arbitrary action on the part of law enforcement authorities, there is simply no point in turning to them with requests and complaints.

At almost the same time, from September 15 to 17, 2003, mass beatings of Chechen students took place in Nalchick. The beatings appeared to be an organized event since they commenced simultaneously in different parts of the city in learning institutions and dormitories.
The administrations of a number of learning institutions even let schoolchildren and students of Chechen nationality miss classes for a while. Local authorities tried to prevent criminal charges from being brought against the organizers of the acts and those who carried them out, but failed, largely thanks to the persistence of representatives of the Chechen diaspora who demanded that the Prosecutor General’s Office examine materials of the investigation. Four criminal cases were brought, which went to the prosecutor office of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic for proceedings.
In May of 2004, a “Memorial” Network lawyer sent an inquiry to the Prosecutor’s Office regarding the status of these cases. No written response was ever sent but the oral reply was that all the cases concerning the beatings of Chechen students were suspended due to the impossibility of ascertaining the individuals suspected of committing the crimes.
At the same time, Duma deputy V.V. Igrunov appealed to the minister of internal affairs, V.V. Gryslov to bring the perpetrators to justice and to provide for the security of Chechens residing in Kabardino-Balkaria. The response letter of deputy minister of internal affairs S.F. Shadrin stated that “it is true that on September 15-17, 2003, there was a disruption of public order by groups of young people in the city of Nalchick,” during which 5 people (three Chechens and two local residents) suffered bodily injuries, but “in the majority of cases, the disorderly conduct was provoked by persons of Chechen nationality.” Thus the victims themselves turned out to be the guilty party.

Unlawful searches and detentions in the homes of migrants often look like raids of bandits. Thus, on July 24, 2003 at 6 am, six men in camouflage gear raided the house of Adam and Zulihan Magomadovs in the village of Sokol in the Saratov region, awakened the entire family in a very rude form and took Adam, Zulihan and their oldest daughter to the local police station. Zulihan Magomadova asked to see some documents, explaining that she wanted to be sure that she was dealing with police officers, not bandits. One of the men produced credentials from the office for fighting crime in commerce issued to officer Holodov.
During the questioning Magomadova asked to see the order on the basis of which she, her husband and daughter had been detained. She was told that explosions all over the country and the command of Vladimir Putin are such a document. The husband was questioned until 2 p.m., then all were released. No charges were filed against the Magomadovs. After the “raid” on the house, Zulihan’s gold earrings disappeared. Z.A. Magomadova sent a statement to the prosecutor’s office of Saratov region regarding the illegal actions of the employees of the office for fighting crime in commerce. But the Prosecutor General’s Office ignored her arguments that these employees violated the Magomadovs’ constitutional right to sanctity of the home, conducted a baseless verification of their documents, unlawfully took them to the police station, and detained A. Magomadov for a period exceeding 3 hours. As usual, it did not find any grounds for holding employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs accountable.
The depth of the country is not any more hospitable to Chechen residents than large cities. On July 4, 2003, Said-Magomed Musliev, born in 1969, requested that the passport and visa administration of the Moscow city police office issue him a temporary identification card to take with him to Chechnya where he could obtain a replacement for the passport he had lost. Not wanting to remain in Moscow without a passport while the question was being decided, Said-Magomed went to stay with relatives in the city of Kolchugin in the Vladimir region. There, on July 11, he was detained for 20 days for no reason whatsoever at the determination of the local prosecutor and held in the temporary detention ward of the Kolchugin district police office. Upon being set free, he was told to leave the Vladimir region within three hours.
The decision of the Kolchugin prosecution was illegal since, according to the RF Constitution, a citizen can be detained for a period exceeding 48 hours only pursuant to a court decision. However, the regional prosecution did not discover any violations in the actions of the Kolchugin district police office and prosecutor’s office except for the fact that the determination regarding the detention of S.M. Musliev was “filled out on a form with a dated format.” The prosecution justified Musliev’s ten-day arrest with a reference to the RF President’s decree # 1815 of 11.02.1993 “On measures for preventing vagrancy and panhandling.” Information provided by the police office of Valdimir region shows just how closely this reference corresponds to reality: according to their data, Musliev was detained when the car in which he was sitting and which was being driven by his relative was stopped by the traffic police for speeding.
In Hasavyurt the local administration adopted the provision # 56-11 of 05.23.2003 “On measures for improving criminogenic conditions,” which links the growth of crime with the increase in the number of migrants from neighboring Chechnya. The provision catalyzed the activity of law enforcement and, as a result, a greater number of migrants suffer from humiliating investigation procedures, unlawful arrests and detentions.
Djamilya Bataeva from Chechnya went to the Hasavyurt city police office to inquire about her relative who had been seized on the night of February 23, 2003. Her passport was taken away, she was subjected to swearing and insults. The passport was returned only after the intervention of a “Memorial” Network lawyer and after Bataeva paid 500 rubles. It goes without saying that no receipt was given upon payment of the fine.
On entering Mahachkala bribes are exacted from Chechen drivers. Five hundred rubles were demanded of Yusupova’s driver, Ramazan. When he asked what for, he was told outright, “for being a Chechen.”
A “Memorial” lawyer reports from Krasnodar on the administrative arbitrary action on the part of police officers toward the Hasuyev family. For instance, on February 15, 2004, sergeant A.A. Dyachenko of the patrol force illegally detained Sepiyat Hasueva, drawing up a report of an administrative violation. She was held in the internal affairs administration reception for eight hours, in spite of having a passport with a mark of registration. Police officer A.A. Dyachenko permitted himself insulting remarks toward her. Hasuyeva complained about his actions to the prosecution but no measures regarding A.A. Dyachenko were taken.
In Cheboksary, Chechen migrant Mavlid Danilovich Basaev is under the constant, intense observation of the police and even the firefighters. They frequently visit his house and question his neighbors. One “funny” episode took place on August 5, 2003. Police officers came by and demanded to know where his son was as though he was being searched for. Mavlid led out his ten-year old son, who was born under bombardment and who shivers at the slightest sound. Mavlid Danilovich says that when his son asks him why he can’t protect him from the police, he doesn’t want to live.

*The resolution of the RF Government # 510 dated 04.30.1997, paragraph 19, “Citizens who receive compensation for lost housing lose the right to live in temporary placement centers for forced migrants and in living space for temporary placement of forced migrants, and are also removed from the register for amelioration of living conditions”, is no longer effective according to the resolution of the RF Government # 785 of 01.31.

VI. The situation of Chechens in the Moscow region. (May 2003 - May 2004. Materials provided by the “Civic Assistance” Committee.)

Over the course of the year since the publication of our last report, Chechens have remained one of the groups in the population most discriminated against. The forms of discrimination haven’t changed, although their incidence has. On the one hand, the frequency of the rudest and harshest manifestations of discrimination, such as persecution on the part of the police and falsified criminal charges has gradually decreased. On the other hand, less obvious forms of discrimination, such as discrimination in the matters of employment, have become an everyday, commonplace occurrence, like anti-Semitism was in its day.
It can be said that discrimination against Chechens has taken on a stable shape, has coalesced into a certain system, the foundational principles of which are constant control on the part of the police, alienation from sources of subsistence and limited access to the basic rights available to the Russian population.

Police control
25 years old Roza Razhapova had no choice but to leave Chechnya: she was being threatened by bandits who demanded that she inform them where her neighbors went, with whom the bandits had some accounts to settle. In Moscow, Rosa found work as a dishwasher in the cafй “Stepan Razin” on Orehov Boulevard. On August 1, 2003, at about 5 p.m., employees of the “Zyablikovo” police office showed up at the cafй, checked her documents (which were in order) and took her to the local police station. There they compelled her to write an explanation of why she came to Moscow, how she found employment, where she lived and with whom, and at what time she came home. She was fingerprinted, photographed en face and side-face. At 11 p.m., other cafй employees were brought to the station: the director, the bartender, the waitress, the cooks and the guard. All were questioned about Roza and then released. At about 1 a.m. Roza was taken to the apartment where she lived. The children of the landlady were questioned about Roza (the landlady herself was at the hospital), as were neighbors. They wanted to know whether Caucasian men visited her. From there, she was once again taken to the police station, and the same questions started all over again. Then they said that they had orders from their superiors not to let Roza go just yet and temporarily put her in solitary confinement. At 10 in the morning, they looked in on her and then closed the door again. She dozed off. When she woke up she saw that the door was open. At about 6 that evening, Roza left the isolation room unimpeded and walked out of the station. A police officer she ran into in the hall asked her what she was doing there and who was dealing with her. She wasn’t able to give an answer – she didn’t know.
Duma deputy V.V. Igrunov made an inquiry at the “Zyablikovo” police office as to the basis for the investigative actions toward R. Razhapova. In response, the head of the police office, lieutenant colonel S.A. Stepanenko informed him that Roza had been detained in the course of operation “Fatima” (aimed at the prevention of terrorist acts committed by women, so called “black widows”), that she gave all explanations voluntarily and agreed to be fingerprinted and that no investigative actions with respect to her had been undertaken.
In this way, Roza spent more than 24 hours in the police station, was subjected to questioning (some of it at night), her coworkers were taken to the station for questioning and her neighbors roused from their beds – with no basis whatsoever.
Besides its other features, this episode is typical also in that after it became clear that Roza could not be tied to a terrorist act, she was still sent to solitary confinement – just in case they might be able to find something else for her.
On August 6, 2003, Elizaveta Sulayeva called the “Civic Assistance” Committee office, which knows her family quite well. Elizaveta is a refugee from Grozny, a former director of an orphanage, and a mother of six. Her own children, four daughters and two sons, are already grown up. The youngest son, 17 years old Magomed is an invalid who suffers from hemophilia. Elizaveta is also raising a four years old orphan girl who was given to her as an infant.
Elizaveta told the Committee that she and her 25 years old son Zelimhan were detained in the “Lyublino” police office for having no registration. The Zulayevs indeed had problems with their registration. Duma deputy V.V. Igrunov turned to the passport administration of the Moscow city police office, asking them to resolve this problem and received an affirmative answer. But the Zulayevs had not yet been able to officially complete their registration at the time of their detention. A Committee employee explained all this to the police stationmaster, and the Zulayevs were released.
The next day, Elizaveta called the “Civic Assistance” Committee again. At 11 in the morning, district inspector S.S. Dronov came to their home, demanded to see the apartment lease and said: “I’ll talk to the landlady myself. Either she pays a fine of 20,000 roubles (about $650 – such fines do not exist) or she evicts you. People like you are not going to live here under my nose.” The inspector took Zelimhan to the central police station, from there he called a squad and sent her to the local precinct. There he was asked where he was from, what he was doing in Moscow. They insisted he was a suicide bomber. From the “Lyublino” police office he was taken to district office for fighting organized crime, for more of the same questions (in the course of the conversation officers said to each other: “Check it out! He has four sisters!”). In the “Lyublino” police office, Zelimhan managed to quietly call his mother from his cell phone and tell her where he was. In the district office for fighting organized crime, his cell phone was taken away. For some time, he was kept in a cell where there was nothing to sit on. Then he was handcuffed and taken to the police office of the southeast area of the city for fingerprinting and analyses of substances present on his hands. At about 9 p.m. he was released without any explanation or apology.
Until Zelimhan came home, his mother and a “Civic Assistance” employee constantly telephoned the police office and the office for fighting organized crime. Police officers responded to their persistent questions as follows: we are conducting a standard check, we have no specific suspicions about Z. Sulayev. In the end, sick of answering their calls, M.B. Pikkeli, the head of the office for fighting organized crime, told them: “Stop worrying, we’re not going to plant anything on him!”
M.B. Pikkeli felt the need to clarify this because he knows all too well the kinds of measures that often accompany such checks.
On July 5, 2003, returning from her dacha and not yet aware of the explosion in Tushino, “Civic Assistance” Committee employee Lyudmila Gendel saw police officers compelling two elderly Armenian women to empty the contents of their purses right onto the dirty floor in a passage in the “Vyhino” metro station. Lyudmila walked up to one of them, produced her certificate of an aide to a Duma deputy and asked the policeman to introduce himself and explain his actions. The guard, whose name as it later turned out was A.D. Simachev, answered her in unquotable foul language. At about this point, another policeman approached them who turned out to be the supervisor of the first. L.Z. Gendel addressed all of her questions to him. In the course of their conversation, A.D. Simachev suggested several times to his supervisor, “Why don’t you take a look at her purse, the purse.” Finally, unable to contain himself, he reached into Lyudmila’s open purse himself and pulled out of it a cellophane bag she had never seen before. The supervisor grabbed it out of his hands immediately and said to L.Z. Gendel: “Don’t pay any attention, this is Labrador tea. A disgruntled Simachev left still swearing, while his supervisor felt the need to smooth things over in the following way. Taking Lyudmila by the arm, he politely asked, “Excuse me, but what nationality are you?” Learning that she was Jewish, the policeman explained that Simachev fought in Chechnya, was injured in the chest and since then “fiercely hates Chechens, Jews, and other people of Caucasian nationality.”
In response to the inquiry of Duma deputy V.V. Igrunov about this incident, V.V. Pronin, the head of the city police office, said: “In the course of the inquiry we conducted, we found no objective confirmation of the facts enumerated in the statement. No violations of the law or misconduct were discovered in the police officers’ actions.”
These incidents (quite ordinary) typify the situation in which Chechens find themselves in Moscow: they are all suspects due to the sheer fact of their ethnicity. Any of them might be sought out at any moment at home or at work, stopped in the street and taken to the police station to be forced to explain why he or she was in Moscow and what they were doing at the moment when this or that terrorist act was committed.
The following episode demonstrates just how indefinite and meaningless the instructions received by the patrol service are. On December 25, at about 11 p.m. at the “Novoslobodskaya” metro station Svetlana Gannushkina, “Civic Assistance” Committee Chair, and the Committee’s programmer Aleksey Kurbatov witnessed how a patrol officer searched a young man with a Chechen appearance. The Moscow dialect and the young man’s confident manners persuaded the police officer that he was dealing with a Muscovite. The onlookers may have played a role as well. Not finding anything reprehensible in his briefcase, the patrol officer let the young man go even though he did not have any documents. After he left, Gannushkina asked the patrol officer to explain what had happened, showing him her certificate of a member of the RF President’s Commission on Human Rights. The patrol officer explained that the young man was undocumented and that was why he looked through his things. To conduct a document check you need some kind of reason, the so-called orientation, Gannushkina reminded him. In answer to this, the patrol officer readily showed her a list of individuals who are being sought in connection with terrorist acts committed in Moscow. The list consists of about 50 Chechen first and last names. There are no descriptions of these people, no photographs or any other data that might help the police identify the wanted individuals so anyone who looks Chechen according to the given police officer turns out to be a suspect. “What am I supposed to do with this?” – asked the patrol officer. Alas, we do not know either.

The “presumption of guilt” of Chechens and the right of the police to subject them to these kinds of checks are recognized at an official level – in spite of the fact that it contradicts the law.
In the previous report, we cited the case of the unlawful detention of Ahmed Arsamakov by Moscow metro patrol officer R. Gunchenko. Ahmed consequently complained against the patrol officer’s actions first to the metro prosecutor’s office, then to the Moscow prosecutor’s office and the Prosecutor’s General Office (twice). Letters continued to fly back and forth on this issue from December 2002 until September 2003. Ahmed demanded that he either be given a specific reason why he had been subjected to a check or a recognition that there had been no reason other than his ethnicity and consequently a punishment of the patrol officer, since under the law ethnicity cannot serve as the basis for a check. The prosecution agreed that Ahmed’s detention and the demand that he explain anything regarding his affiliation with terrorist acts were unlawful, meaning that there was no concrete reason why his documents were checked. But at the same time, the prosecution refused to hold the patrol officer accountable for discrimination on the basis of nationality. In fact, the Moscow prosecution tried to justify his actions in the following way: “According to the letter from the city police office leadership about impending terrorist acts in which fighters from Chechen military formations are to play a role, police officers are obligated to increase their vigilance and control the behavior of individuals from the Northern Caucasus region.” In other words, of course it’s against the law, but you know how it is, it’s the situation…

The Moscow city police office really does compel its subordinates to “control the behavior of individuals from the Northern Caucasus region.” There is ample evidence that the city police office unlawfully arranged for all the Chechen residents of Moscow to be under the implicit observation of the police. It is implicit in the duties of district inspectors to keep track of the emigrants from the Northern Caucasus on their territory and to regularly report on their behavior. The visitors and employees of the “Civic Assistance” Committee have often heard the district inspectors themselves complain that they have to give these reports. Moreover, they get in trouble if Chechens are discovered living in their district without registration. Perhaps that is why many district inspectors try to get rid of them: intimidate landlords who rent apartments to Chechens, threaten the Chechens themselves with eviction if they do not have registration or if they are registered in Moscow at a different address. At the same time, Caucasians in the district, particularly unregistered ones, represent a source of income for many district inspectors. As one refugee from Chechnya told us: “the inspector goes around collecting money - it isn’t even a matter of whether you’re registered or not. He says it’s because he has to do extra work on account of the Chechens – writing reports.”
Complaints about persecution from district inspectors have become somewhat less frequent over the last year, but they have not disappeared. For example, a Chechen refugee Umar-Ali Mezhidov had to turn to us for help twice on those grounds.
Umar-Ali with his wife and child rent an apartment in the Yuzhnoe Butovo area, and he is registered in Moscow at a different address. The apartment landlord is an alcoholic who has been deprived of his parental rights. His minor son is in the custody of his sister who is the one who rented the apartment, but she cannot give permission to register there. The owners are very pleased with their tenant who put what had been a completely befouled apartment in good order. Half the rent for the apartment goes to the landlord, half to his son.
On July 31, 2003, Umar-Ali telephoned “Civic Assistance” and said that over the past day district inspection U.H. Fisenco came to the apartment twice and once summoned him to the “Yuzhnoe Butovo” police office. The reason was that Umar-Ali was registered at a different address. And besides the district inspector insisted that the registration was fake. Umar-Ali’s wife had no registration because her purse with her passport and her child’s birth certificate had been stolen in Moscow. The inspector and particularly his supervisor, senior inspector R.V.Belov threatened to expel the Mezhidov family and seal off the apartment.
“Civic Assistance” employees tried to resolve the conflict by speaking with the inspector. Arrangements were made for Umar-Ali to come to the police together with the owners of the apartment so they can confirm that they agree to his family’s residence in their apartment, to have his fingerprints taken, etc. (by the way, he had never refused to do this). However, on March 26, 2004, the episode was repeated exactly in every detail.
On the evening of February 2, 2004, Sultan Ramazanov from Dagestan called “Civic Assistance.” He was at his acquaintances’ place on Nizegorodskaya street when lieutenant colonel A.V. Shlykov, head of the district inspector service of the “Taganskiy” police office came over. The lieutenant colonel took away Sultan’s registration certificate, declaring that he was obligated to live at his place of registration and that his registration would be cancelled because he didn’t live there. “Civic assistance” sent a letter to the “Taganskiy” police office, which indicated that any demand to live at one’s place of registration limits personal freedom of all citizens and contradicts the law, which prescribes that people register at their place of residence, not that they reside at their place of registration. In the reply, lieutenant colonel I.D. Kibalnichenko, head of the “Taganskiy” police office, wrote that the registration certificate had been returned, but justified the actions of his colleague with reference to the fact that Ramazanov was, as it turns out, “required to notify the local police office about his factual place of residence.”

Problems with Registration
Lack of registration or registration at a place other than one’s actual place of residence are the most frequent reasons for the persecution of Chechens, and emigrants from the Caucasus more broadly, according to the Moscow police. At the same time, registration remains an almost intractable problem for the majority of Caucasians in Moscow.
Luisa Kayrnykaeva, a refugee from Grozny, and her husband and four children have been residing in Moscow and renting an apartment since September 2000.The apartment owner, intimidated by the district inspector, doesn’t dare register her. An employee of the local public utilities service must have taken pity on Luisa and agreed to register her at her apartment. In February 2004, the term of the registration expired and she began the process of registering for another sixth month period. However, at the public utilities service passport table she was told that under the instruction of the passport depatment of the “Tsaritsyno” police office, the term of registration for Chechens is limited to one month. In despair, Luisa called “Civic Assistance:” with a one month registration, she would not receive government allowances for her children, which play a very important role in her meager family budget. During a conversation with a “Civic Assistance” employee, V.E. Vorontsov, the head of the “Tsaritsyno” police office, promised that he would resolve Luisa’s registration issue, but when she came to see him, he gave an order to register her for 3 months only. No sooner than the “Civic Assistance” addressed the passport and visa administration of the Moscow city police office was Luisa registered for 6 months. Even so, the passport and visa administration employee who verified the situation described in the letter from “Civic Assistance” visited the owner of the apartment where Luisa is registered and spoke to her in such a way as to make it unlikely that she’ll agree to register Luisa anew: the policewoman threatened, among other things, that she’ll rip up the floors in the apartment looking for gold that Luisa had supposedly her as payment for her willingness to register her. Then the same woman paid Luisa a visit, which gave her amble opportunity, to see just how absurd her suppositions had been. Still, this did not prevent her threats from reducing Luisa to tears.
On May 15, 2003, police sergeant major E.Kovalchuk stopped Aminat Asueva, a refugee from Chechnya registered at the home place of the “Civic Assistance” employee I.A. Kolmanovsky in the vicinity of the metro station “Rechnoy Vokzal.” In spite of the fact that Aminat presented her certificate of registration to the policeman, he forced her to get in the police car and took her to the station, declaring that her registration certificate was fake and that she must have bought it because nobody actually registers Chechens. Knowing the situation as it is, the policeman simply could not believe that there are people who would agree to register Chechens in their homes and that there is a police office out there that would perform the registration without a bribe, that is, in accordance with the law.

Problems associated with the absence of registration: limitation of rights
Lack of registration results in a multitude of problems for Chechens, which complicates their stay in the capital to a great extent. Apart from the constant danger of being detained and fined for residence without registration, such problems include lack of access to free medical assistance and the impossibility of collecting government pensions and allowances, problems with enrolling children in schools and kindergartens as well as getting jobs.
Access to medical assistance. In Moscow, without a registration, it is impossible to come to a policlinic for aid, to telephone for a doctor, or to get a referral for hospitalization. Only care that is immediately necessary must be provided to all, without exception. However, there are cases where emergency doctors refuse to help patients who have no registration or insurance policy. In any case, emergency care hospitalizes patients for three days at the most after which the patient who has no insurance policy or registration can be discharged regardless of his conditions.
True, the Moscow department of health has provided for the possibility of registering citizens from other cities, including Chechen residents, at area policlinics for a specified period of time (usually a year). This is done on an individual basis at the citizen’s request with the department of health or the health administration of the administrative circuit where he resides. In addition, when necessary the department can give the patient a referral for hospitalization in a Moscow clinic. In reality, however, getting a referral for registration at a policlinic or for hospitalization is far from certain. In recent years, department of health employees constantly send Chechens who approach them to the representatives of the Chechen Republic and give referrals only after a request from that office.
On April 14, 2004, Lom-Ali Ibragimov, a resident of Chechnya suffering from an open form of tuberculosis who came to Moscow for treatment came to “Civic Assistance.” He brought the medical comment of the Research Institute for Phtisiopulmonology of the Moscow Medical Academy named after Sechenov, which indicated that he needed urgent hospitalization but could not be hospitalized at the Research Institute because there were no places available. With a request from “Civic Assistance” he went to the nearby department of health, which in spite of his diagnosis and poor state of his health sent him to the representatives’ office. The employee in charge of medical assistance could not be found either that day or the following day. (In the experience of “Civic Assistance,” this employee is a highly elusive creature.) A “Civic Assistance” employee tried to come to an agreement with the department regarding Lom-Ali’s hospitalization another time. But V.G. Lavrenova, the head of the department for medical assistance to those suffering from tuberculosis, firmly held her ground: medical assistance to Chechens is provided only to the representatives’ office. In the end, the City Center for Fighting Tuberculosis, without any participation on the part of the representatives’ office, referred L.-A. Ibragimov to a hospital. Nonetheless, this patient with an open form of tuberculosis had to spend one cold April night on an outdoor bench.
When sending patients from Chechnya to the Republic’s representatives’ office, the department refers to some kind of agreement with the office. The content of this agreement is unknown to us. What is clear, however, is that by erecting another bureaucratic barrier in the patient’s path to medical assistance, it hinders access to treatment and is discriminatory. There are no similar agreements between the department and representatives of other regions. Only Chechen residents must seek the permission of their representatives to obtain medical assistance in Moscow.
Altogether, discrimination against Chechens as well as other migrants is less manifested in the area of health services than in other areas of welfare. However, there is an unfortunate trend of increasing discrimination.
On March 17, 2004, Roza Djaaubatyrova, a resident of Grozny suffering from a serious condition of the spine, approached “Civic Assistance.” The RF Ministry of Health referred her for treatment to the Clinic for Neurological Diseases of the Moscow Medical Academy named after Sechenov. However, there she was told that in connection with the RF presidential elections, for the moment she could not be hospitalized there. The Ministry of Health denied that there was any order to that effect, but could do nothing. Roza thus had to wait to be admitted to the hospital until RF president V.V. Putin was elected for a second term.
At about the same time, V.A. Valenkova, an employee of the Ministry of Health, who had frequently helped patients from Chechnya at the request of “Civic Assistance,” in conversation with a “Civic Assistance” employee suddenly said, in a worried voice, that Chechens who come to Moscow for treatment absolutely have to be registered. On the one hand, all RF citizens are obliged to be registered. On the other hand, the responsibility for registration of patients falls on the shoulders of hospital administration. The remark might have seemed meaningless, but this subject had also been brought up in earlier conversations with employees of the Ministry of Health, which makes it look like some kind of special orders concerning Chechens have trickled down to the Ministry of Health as well.

Access to free education. In February 2002, after the decision of the Moscow City court of December 25, 1999, the provision limiting admission of children from other cities to schools and kindergartens to cases when their parents were registered was excluded from the rules on registration in Moscow. Despite this, “Civic Assistance” continues to receive complaints against refusals to admit children to schools and kindergartens (or threats that they will be dismissed) caused by lack of registration. Possibly, the complaints were not as numerous than in past years, but there were still too many to speak of a radical change in the situation. The cases all look quite similar. As an example, we’ll cite only the most recent ones.
On March 17, 2004, Malika Bachaeva, a refugee from Chechnya and a mother of four, approached “Civic Assistance.” In connection with her moving to a different area in Moscow, Malika had to transfer her daughter to a different school. The director of the school # 536 refused to admit the girl because of lack of registration.
On March 29, 2004, Bek-Magomed Abdulhakimov, a 20 years old refugee from Chechnya, informed “Civic Assistance” that the night school # 18, which he is completing this year, advised him to obtain registration, explaining that otherwise he might be discharged from the school or not issued his certificate of completion.
On April 19, 2004, Aishat Titieva came to “Civic Assistance” and spoke about a conversation she had had two months earlier with V.B. Magerman, the director of the school # 479, asking him to admit her grandchildren, 10 years old Marha and 7 years old Magomed-Emi. The director said that he needed the children’s personal records. When these records were brought from Chechnya, the director refused again, this time because of the lack of registration. That same day, after a call from the school director, the district investigator visited Aishat’s apartment.
He spoke politely but in the course of the conversation said, “How do we know who you are, what if you blow up the school.” In all the cases described above the problem was dealt with as a result of the intervention of “Civic Assistance.” In speaking with a “Civic Assistance” employee, a school director denied approaching the police. However, such a step would not have been the mark of excessive vigilance on his part: since October 12, 2001, the order # 2-13-15/20 of the Moscow education committee has been in effect. It obligates the school directors to inform police authorities about families of schoolchildren who are not registered at the place of sojourn. (“On the situation in Russia of Chechen residents who involuntarily left its territory.” “R-Valent,” M., 2002)

Pensions and government allowances. While refusals to enroll children in schools or kindergartens due to a lack of registration are illegal and therefore surmountable with a certain amount of support, the lack of registration is an absolutely legitimate reason for denying pension or allowance payments. Here, there is no point in speaking of discrimination toward Chechens; the situation is better characterized as discrimination toward all people who lack registration. And in Moscow, this discrimination is less severe than in some other regions. Thus, in Moscow, as a rule, citizens who have temporary registration receive their monthly allowance for children and one-time allowances in connection with the birth of new children while in some other regions permanent registration is a precondition for receiving such allowances.
Nonetheless, from the beginning of the year 2000 pensioners who registered in Moscow temporarily cannot receive city bonuses and pensions paid out of the local budget, which are quite significant. At the same time, some categories of people from other cities, such as lone pensioners and invalids or families consisting of pensioners and invalids, do get these bonuses. In every case except one when “Civic Assistance” made requests for the payment of such bonuses to Chechens, the Moscow department of social security reacted positively.
Yet registration remains an absolute precondition. If there is no registration, there is no pension or allowances paid. During the summer of the year 2003, “Civic Assistance” Committee member and RF Duma deputy V.V. Igrunov twice made requests for exceptional payment of allowances for three junior children of Malika Emieva who found herself in extremely stringent situation (she has four children altogether). Malika with her children in search for housing voluntarily occupied a building slated to be demolished. There can be no registration at such houses. The department of social security refused Malika in allowance payments, advising her to obtain them “at her place of residence” in Grozny, where she actually has no “place of residence,” no housing at all.
In speaking of the situation of Chechens in Moscow, the following circumstance should be noted. Regardless of whether there are elements of discrimination toward Chechens in the politics of one or another city department, bureaucrats who confront the need to pay pension to Chechen migrants, register them at a local policlinic or enroll their child in school and so on, face an internal conflict: on the one hand, they deal with Russian citizens who have the same rights as everyone else. On the other hand, as the media constantly suggest, a Chechen is an enemy. Some officials in such situations overcome their uncertainty and carry out the law with respect to the unusual visitor. Others try to shirk their responsibilities in every way, dragging things out, burdening the visitor with illegal conditions, and so on. This internal conflict also often finds its manifestation in rude tricks.
On December 16, 2003, Razida Dadeva called “Civic Assistance.” In a state close to hysteria, she spoke of how her 12 years old daughter Madina was treated by workers at the “Universitet” metro station. Still in early September, Razida filled out a special form so that her daughter could receive a plastic card for schoolchildren giving them free access to the metro. Then this application was returned to them 8 times with a demand that they rewrite something, verify information concerning their registration, the existence of housing in which they are registered (a private house) and so on. All this continued for 3 months. On December 16, Madina went to the “Universitet” station to finally obtain the card. But instead, the worker at the metro threw her application in her face and said she was “sick of her.” When Matina became offended, she was told: “you blow us up here and want to ride in the metro for free.) During the first war, Razida lost her farther and husband, who died during the bombardment of Grozny.

Discrimination in employment. Although the law forbids refusing job applications for reasons unrelated to the worker’s qualifications, such as ethnicity or place of residence, in practice both of these factors constantly serve as a barrier in job search for Chechens, the former (ethnicity) to a much greater extent than the latter (registration). Both employers and workers think that the absence of registration is a perfectly legal reason to turn down a job application. Most of them react with surprise and even doubt when told that this is not a legal basis for denying employment. But openly refusing a candidate on the basis of his or her ethnicity is something most employers didn’t dare do, preferring to give the candidate some other kind of reason for the rejection. However, recently Chechens are told in a straightforward fashion that the real reason, ethnicity, is more and more frequently named when they are shown the door. In so doing, employers expect understanding and often get it. People get used to such a situation and begin to see it as the norm.
On December 1, 2003, Zara Tataeva described at the reception room at “Civic Assistance” how she couldn’t find a job no matter what she did. As soon as prospective employers learnt that she was Chechen, the attitude even of those who were interested changed radically. Zara submitted her information to the firm “Lekons,” which places babysitters and home care workers, a long time ago. Recently, she received a call from this firm and was informed that there is work for her and that she should fill out a form. There was a question about ethnicity in the form, and after Zara submitted it, an employee of the firm told her that she was not accepted because of her ethnicity.
On March 3, 2004, a construction engineer from Grozny, Alvi Digayev, told at the reception room at “Civic Assistance” that he had been looking for work for three months. Several times he entered agreements to work as a foreman. His experience, his qualifications were all acceptable, but as soon as they learnt he was a Chechen, the deal was off (either with reference to ethnicity or under another pretext).
Razida Dadayeva mentioned above was able to find work as a teacher in a professional school at a low salary (2,500 rubles) only after a long, fruitless search. But after a few months of being tormented by students and teachers alike, she had to leave. She then had a stroke of luck and was employed elsewhere at a high wage. She tried to do her best and was in a really good standing there. But upon learning that she was a Chechen, the new supervisor rudely dismissed her from work in front of colleagues. Razida approached the owner of the firm and the supervisor was obliged to apologize to her. However, such a resolution would have been very unlikely if the owner of the firm had not been a citizen of Poland.
Malika Mintsaeva was less fortunate. Since the summer of 2003 she and her older daughters, Zarina and Laura, worked in the knitting workshop of the firm “Altika,” which is located on the grounds of a Moscow experimental machine plant. The Mintsaevs wages were good as were their relations with the administration. However, according to the director general of the firm, A.A. Chistyakov, he was approached by the Federal Security Service and warned: as soon as we say that the Mintsaevs shouldn’t work here, fire them immediately. In September 2003, after the latest explosion in Moscow, the administration asked Malika’s two sons who worked as loaders for the same firm to leave.
On January 13, 2004, a district investigator from the 113th police station came to the firm and spoke to A.A. Chistyakov about the Mintsaevs. He said that Laura, who has neither passport nor registration, should be fired and in general, it would be best to get rid of the Mintsaevs altogether.
On February 6, 2004, the day of the explosion in the Moscow metro, the Mintsaevs came to wok at 8 o’clock as usual. After 9, their colleagues started looking at them strangely, some stopped speaking to them. At 1 p.m. the director general called them in and said that there had been a call from the Federal Security Service and an order to fire the Chechens, or else the firm will be closed. He promised to give them work to do at home, but when Malika came for it, he refused.

Razida and Malika’s cases demonstrate the two primary reasons why Chechens are discharged from their jobs or are unable to find any: animosity toward Chechens and employers’ fear of unpleasant consequences that might follow from the presence of Chechen workers among their staff. Judging by how widespread these concerns are, they seem to be well grounded. Still, it remains unclear who initiates the intimidation of these employers: does the alienation of Chechens from sources of subsistence represent an unannounced government policy, which the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service (or their Moscow subdivisions) implement? Or is the intimidation born of individual phobias, fears, and interests of supervisors at different levels and employees of these departments? There is no reliable data today to answer this question.
In any case, the aggregate effect of these factors is to push many of the Chechen families in the capital region to the vanishing point. It can be said for certain that over the last year the financial situation of Chechens (particularly IDPs) in Moscow and the city’s environs has grown worse. A group of Chechens, having either failed to find jobs or lost them were deprived of the opportunity to rent housing in Moscow and provide for their families, and so returned to Chechnya – to ruins or houses of relatives already teeming with people. Those who remain in Moscow can barely make ends meet.
An indirect sign of this is the increasing frequency of requests to help place children in kindergartens: it is not ordinarily Chechen practice to send children to kindergartens, they are raised at home under the watchful eyes of their mothers and other women while the men work to provide for the women and children. If a child is sent to a kindergarten, it means that either there is no one to look after him (for example, there is no father and the mother is forced to work) or there is nothing for him to eat (the parents are sitting at home without work).
Numerous requests to write petitions to school directors asking the school to feed a child for free are yet another sign of financial hardship. (A child from a family with many children, as Chechen families typically are, has the right to eat for free at school but for this the family must have a “certification of a long family,” and it is impossible to receive such certification without permanent residence in Moscow). Complaints of money being unofficially collected in schools and kindergartens (for guards, repairs, gifts for teachers, etc.) are further evidence. Such demands are, as a rule, fairly small but today finding an extra 200-300 rubles is a real problem for a family from Chechnya. Over the last year, “Civic Assistance” sent a large number of petitions to school and kindergarten administrations and teacher committees requesting that these families be exempt from such money collection.

Problems with obtaining documents
As in past years, one of the most painful problems for refugees from Chechnya residing in the Moscow region has been to obtain documents – first and foremost internal passports – for which the police stubbornly sent everyone, from 14 years old teenagers to 80 years olds and invalids to their “place of residence,” that is, to Chechnya.
On May 24, 2003, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued the order # 347, which provided for the exchange of old Soviet passports for new Russian ones at the place where the citizen resides, not only where he is registered. This order did not concern teenagers receiving their first passport and those who need to obtain a passport to replace an expired one. Still, it could help many refugees who have to leave their job, if they have one (at the danger of losing it) only to exchange their passports, spend money on the road, on bribes for bureaucrats issuing passports (no passports are issued in Chechnya without a bribe), and first and foremost, subject themselves to the risk of ordeals in Chechnya. However, in practice only very few have been able to make use of this order. In real life we know of only one case where a refugee from Chechnya was able to exchange his passport without leaving Moscow under order # 347.
Ahmed Arsamakov, whom we have already mentioned, submitted documents for passport exchange to the “Preobrazhenskoye” police office in July 2003. In early September he found out that the passport and visa service of Chechnya has returned his documents to the “Preobrazhenskoye” police office and refused to send him a new passport with state courier mail referring to its unreliability. On September 19, after an indignant letter from Duma deputy V.V. Ingrunov, Arsamakov’s documents were once again sent by the passport and visa administration of the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs to Chechnya and in January 2004, half a year after the documents were submitted, he finally received a new passport.
In other cases known to us, refugees who applied for passports at about the same time as A. Arsamakov still wait for their passports. In the previous report we told about Ramzan Zakayev whom a Moscow court sent to Kazakhstan for residing without registration, leaving his pregnant wife Imani Safanova without support of the husband. Of course, she couldn’t go to Chechnya to obtain a new passport. Imani applied for passport replacement to “Levoberezhniy” police office in September 2003. In November it became known that the application never made it to the police station of the village where she was registered. Imani reapplied. In January 2004, S.A. Gannushkina, the “Civic Assistance” Chair, sent a letter to the passport and visa service of the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs where she drew attention of the leadership of the passport and visa service to incomprehensible things happening to applications for passport exchange sent to Chechnya. On March 18, 2004 in reply to this letter Yu.V. Ivashkin, deputy head of the service, informed her that according to the information of the service division in Chechnya, it never received the application of I. Safanova. Yu.V. Ivashkin conveys this information as if the issue in question had to do not with internal correspondence in his service, but with something that didn’t depend on him at all.
We do not know the reason why and at what stage applications for passport replacement sent to Chechnya from Moscow get delayed. However, proceeding from the fact that some regions still do receive passports from Chechnya, one can suppose that documents from Moscow are often simply not sent out, and the order # 347 is not executed.

VII. Criminal cases based on fabricated charges

From the middle of 2003, the falsification of criminal charges no longer has the quality of mass campaign initiated from the top, as was the case after the terrorist acts in Russian cities, beginning from the fall of 1999.
However, we still confront a great number of such instances. As before, the victims of such falsifications are most often ethnic Chechens. Police employees, under whose suspicion young Chechen men fall, are simply unable to apologize and release them after a verification. When suspicions of the person’s connection to a terrorist act are not confirmed, evidence of smaller crimes is invented. Ordinarily, weapons or narcotics are planted.

On May 19, 2003, Zulay Turlueva appealed to the “Civic Assistance” Committee. On May 14, her husband, Ayndi Turluev, 49 years old, was arrested at the 174th Moscow police district passport table and accused of drug possession.
Left with no means of subsistence, Zulay with three small children (Ayndi is 20 years older than Zulay), was forced to vacate the apartment her husband was renting in the beginning of June and, without waiting for the court’s decision in his case, return to stay with relatives in Chechnya. She obtained money for the travel at “Civic Assistance”.
Ayndi took advantage of the free services offered by an attorney with whom we had no contact. That is why we learned of the progress and the outcome of his case only in December 2003, when he was let out of the Vladimirskaya jail to collect his documents for conditional early release.
As Ayndi tells it, he used to be a director of a restaurant in Grozny. He wanted to start one up in Moscow and was in the middle of negotiations to buy a part of a restaurant. A Moscow acquaintance, his old mentor in the restaurant business, promised to loan him money. The restaurant owner made the deal conditional on Ayndi’s having a permanent registration in Moscow.
Ayndi Turluev had an appointment scheduled for May 14, 2003 with the head of the 174th police district passport table, whom he already knew and with whom he had a preliminary agreement about his registration at the place of residence. Something came up, and Ayndi called to try and reschedule the appointment, but the head insisted on his coming as planned. The conversation in his office took an unexpected turn: the police officer was acting strangely and backed away from his promise to register Ayndi. During the conversation, armed people came in and grabbed Ayndi. After that, drugs were discovered in his pocket.
By the decision of Moscow’s Butyrsky court, A. Turluev was sentenced to 9 months’ incarceration.
Ayndi Turluev was a familiar face for the employees of “Civic Assistance.” The organization’s records show that it had been approached 50 times by Ayndi or his wife between late December 1999, when he came for the first time, and June 2003. This extensive experience with Ayndi had convinced the employees that he had never had any dealings with drugs. The “Civic Assistance” Committee wrote a petition for Ayndi Turluev’s early release. The unprecedented case of a jail sending an incarcerated person out to collect papers shows that even there they knew what was going on.

On December 20, 2003, Umidat Magomadova from the city of Orehovo-Zuevo called the “Civic Assistance” Committee. She informed that Umar Beriev, her husband, and his brother Abubakir who were heading for Chechnya in trucks were detained on December 18 and held at the department for fighting organized crime in the town of Domodedovo nearby Moscow.
Umidat said that Umar is a long-distance driver and never participated in military activities. He earned money for his family (they have four children) in long-distance transportation. She learned of his arrest from the employees of the Orehovo-Zuevo police, where she had been summoned the day before. She did not know of the reason why her husband and brother-in-law had been detained.
In a telephone conversation with Elena Burtina, the director of reception room at the Committee, an employee of the Domodedovo department for fighting organized crime confirmed that the Beriev brothers had been detained and specified as the reason a special telegram about their resemblance to certain field commanders. He mentioned in passing that on December 19, the day after they were apprehended, trotyl blocks with fuses were found on them. When Burtina asked, perplexed, how he could explain the fact that the Berievs were detained on Thursday but the explosives were found only on Friday, the police officer answered, “Maybe the explosives are not theirs, they were just driving other people’s cars.” When asked on what grounds the brothers had been held under guard for over 48 hours, he had no answer and referred Ms. Burtina to V.V. Surikov, the head of the department for fighting organized crime, who was expected to be at work only on December 22.
On December 22, a “Migration Rights” network attorney sent with a warrant for the defense of Berievs was not allowed to see the detainees and could not access the materials of the case. The employees of the department for fighting organized crime acted nervously and hinted that they have certain orders that they are more afraid of violating than the law. Only the intervention of the prosecution forced them to give the attorney a chance to perform his duties. The efforts of the attorney, Mr. Gaytaev, were crowned with success thanks only to the position of the prosecutor’s office employee who found that there was insufficient resemblance to the field commanders for the arrest of and fabricated charges against the two Chechen men.
A week later the case had completely collapsed and the Beriev brothers were released. On December 28, Umar Beriev was released from the Domodedovo police temporary detention ward and on December 29 Abubakir Beriev, who had been reclassified from a suspect in the possession of trotyl blocks to a witness, was released by the police office of the town of Kashira. The attorney was told that the case had not yet been closed, and the decision on it or on the filing of charges would be made in January.
Upon their release, the brothers were handed a determination by the Justice of the Peace sentencing them to a 10-day administrative arrest for disobeying lawful demands of the police to produce their documents, using vulgar language, and attempting to start a fight with the police. At the time of the supposed misdeeds, both Berievs were already located at the department for fighting organized crime, as the protocol compiled there confirms.
Upon an attorney’s complaint, the prosecutor’s office of Moscow region conducted an investigation. Based on the results of that investigation, the prosecution submitted a statement to the police office of Moscow region regarding violations of Berievs’ rights that had taken place.
In early April 2004, the results of the expert analyses of substances present on the hands of Abubakar Beriev were received, which confirmed the presence of traces of explosives. The analyses were made by employees of the department for fighting organized crime, rather than the investigator, with no witnesses.
However, the attorney’s work bore fruit and on April 25, 2004, the investigator rendered a determination dropping the criminal prosecution of Abubakar Beriev based on exonerating circumstances, in which he clearly indicated the unlawfulness of the Berievs’ detention, the groundlessness of other actions taken by the employees of the department for fighting organized crime who, in fact, fabricated evidence concerning the case.
There is not even a shred of hope that any measures will be taken against the department employees with regard to this falsification.

In May 2004, Ahmed Muhadiyev approached the “Civic Assistance” Committee seeking medical help. His health had deteriorated sharply after 9 months spent in confinement.
The story of the Muhadiyev brothers, Ahmed, Ramzan and Bislan, gained wide publicity thanks to the fact that their case was covered in a number of newspaper articles (“Carried off by the ‘Whirlwind’” by Anna Politkovskaya, published in “Novaya gazeta” on March 11, 2004; “The presumption of guilt for the Chechens” by Zoya Svetova, published in “Russkiy Kuryer.”) Fleeing the war, the Muhadiyev family rented a room in the city of Elektrogorsk in the Moscow region and obtained temporary registration there. In 2003, the internal affairs authorities refused to register them for subsequent term there, thus making it impossible for them to work and provide for their families. As a result, the women were forced to leave. The young men preferred to stay no matter what, convinced that their lives would be in grave danger in Chechnya.
After the explosion at the stadium in Tushino, the district inspector warned the Muhadiyevs that the district office for fighting organized crime had taken an interest in them. The brothers had nowhere to go: Ahmed was finishing up treatment following a serious operation on his kidneys, and they decided to stay put.
On July 17, 2003, at about six in the morning, police officers showed up at the apartment where Muhadiyevs were renting their room. They locked the Russian neighbors in their room, raised the brothers from their beds and showed them boxes with trotyl blocks and detonators. Thereafter, they handcuffed Muhadiyevs and put the explosives under the bathtub and in both rooms. After figuring out that the neighbors were Russian, they removed the explosives from their room, and called the neighbors themselves as witnesses. The police officers unabashedly took fingerprints of the detainees off their television set. Police captain Artem Mitrohin, the investigator of the Pavlovo-Posadskiy district department for fighting organized crime of the Moscow region wrote up the report and Muhadiyevs were taken away. “Everything was simple, open, and filled with understanding of the political moment,” writes Anna Politkovskaya in her article. Later in court, Artem Mitrohin, while answering Ahmed Muhadiyev’s questions called him “brother” and couldn’t seem to understand why this elicited an irritated cry from the defendant: “I am not your brother!”
At the outset, the criminal case was being prepared about an attempt to blow up a power station. But it was somehow too clumsy.
Ahmed began to work out a plea bargain with the investigator: he offered to accept blame for possession of the weapons in return for his brothers’ release. He was tricked, only other brother, Bislan, was let go. Ramzan remained behind the bars and, according to his words, was given some sort of injection as a result of which he was rapidly losing his eyesight. In the investigation ward the Muhadiyevs were not given their mail or their medications.
On April 26, 2004, the trial began. Like all trials based on fabricated charges, it looked like a tragicomedy. In response to questions asked by Ksenya Kostromina, the Muhadievs’ attorney from the non-governmental organization “International defense center”, the good-natured captain Mitrohin answered earnestly: “There was intelligence that Chechens live in Sovetskaya street, meaning that the likelihood was high of finding explosive substances. I was called in to put together a report. I came and put it together.”
“What kind of procedural basis did you have for compiling his report?” – asks the attorney.
“Procedural?” – Mitrohin is astonished. – “Of course, there was none!”
“Do you understand well what you are saying?” – the judge asks, horrified.
The judge, Yekaterina Vasilievna Naryzhnaya understands perfectly well what kind of game she is being forced to play, but does not dare pronounce the verdict of not guilty. She is in an unenviable position. There turn out to be two reports of the defendants’ detention. According to one of them, Muhadiyevs were apprehended at home. Mitrohin and the defendants themselves confirm this. According to the version advanced by the second report, at that same moment early in the morning watchful police officers noticed the brothers in the street near a doorway and wanted to check their documents, but Muhadiyevs attempted to run away. The officers caught them, searched them and found explosives. Mr. Redkin, leutenant-colonel of justice, the senior investigator of the investigative division of the principal investigation office of the Moscow region police office, who investigated Muhadiyevs’ case, apparently forgot to destroy the first report, which prompted too many questions.
Such transmutations of space have frequently been described in our previous reports, but the accused have never been vindicated.
The case of Muhadiyevs was no different. Both brothers were found guilty under article 222, part 2 of the RF criminal code “acquisition and possession of weapons” and were sentenced to the “term served,” meaning that after 9 months of confinement they were released in the courtroom.
The sentence contains usual wording: “The court finds that A.L. Muhadiyev and R.L. Muhadiyev, following prior agreement between themselves and acting in shared intention, at a time and place unascertained by the investigation unlawfully obtained from persons unascertained by the investigation 160-gram trotyl blocks and detonators for them, brought them to their place of residence and stored them there illegally… Muhadiyevs did not admit their guilt . . . Their guilt was fully established by the bodies of persecution.”

On November 5, 2003, Zara Tsumaeva appealed to the “Civic Assistance” Committee; her son, Murad Mutushevich Tsumaev was detained during a document check, and narcotics had been planted on him. The Committee provided Tsumaev with free legal assistance provided by Tatiana Dolbneva. However, by the time the attorney began working on the case, the investigator had convinced the young man to confess and to refuse investigation under the new code of criminal procedure. Of course, he was promised that the sentence would be a suspended one and would not exceed half a year. During his meeting with the attorney after the trial, Tsumaev frankly admitted that he was convinced to confess his guilt and decline attorney and investigation in return for a suspended sentence.
However, the trial that took place on December 5, 2003 chose one year in a convict colony as the form of punishment. In such a situation, the attorney, unable to offer a full-fledged defense, can appeal the sentence on the based of procedural violations or its harshness. This is what was done. On appeal, Tatiana Dolbneva asked the court to mitigate the sentence, since “the court did not take into account the fact that Murad Mutushevich Tsumaev had no prior convictions, had never been held criminally or administratively accountable, voluntarily decided to cooperate with the police in exposing individuals involved in the sale of narcotics, which he declared immediately upon his detention as is documented in the interrogation report. Moreover, the materials of the case show that his mother, Zara Tsumaeva, suffers from a serious illness affecting the heart, blood vessels, and spine. The defendant is her only son and family member, and thus the only person capable of assisting her. Under such circumstances, the punishment is excessively harsh and should be changed to a suspended sentence.” The appellate court left the verdict unchanged. Tatiana Dolbneva suggested that they continue the fight by filing a complaint with the court of cassation. But in a meeting with his mother Murad Tsumaev asked her to pass along his gratitude and complete persuasion that there is no justice for Chechens and no point in fighting for it.

On May 19, 2004, Zama Ganievna Kurazova, a permanent resident of Moscow and practicing doctor, came to reception with the chair of “Civic Assistance.” At the outset of the hostilities in Chechnya, her family moved to Moscow to live with her son Ramzan Aydamirov who was at the time a student at the Plehanov Academy of Finance. Ramzan successfully completed the academy, commenced his post-graduate studies there and defended his thesis to become a candidate of economic sciences. He worked as a sales director in a private firm. Soon after the terrorist act in the theater center on Dubrovka in October 2002 he was fired. According to Zama Ganievna, in the neighborhood of Perovo where they live, all the houses were papered with flyers proclaiming: “Chechen mafia, get out of Perovo!”
On April 30, 2004 at about 11 at night, Ramzan drove to the center of Moscow to visit his girlfriend. A minivan stopped behind his car, several people jumped out, twisted his arms behind his back, handcuffed him and drove off with him in their car with his car following behind. Ramzan’s girlfriend who had been waiting for his arrival witnessed the entire scene from her home.
At half past one in the morning on May 1, a search was conducted in Zama Ganievna’s apartment. Her things were turned upside down for 6 hours, but nothing was found. The investigation officers informed the mother that Ramzan was arrested for narcotics not far from the “Brateevo” police office (at the outskirts of Moscow), where 2 grams of heroin were found in his car.
Zama Ganievna rushed to Brateevo. On the morning of May 1, she burst into the closed chamber of the police office where she found her son severely beaten. He had a chance to tell her that he was beaten and tortured with electric shock and that was why he signed “what he shouldn’t have.”
The attorney on duty who participated in Ramzan’s interrogation and who had recommended to confess that he had narcotics in his possession, called his mother during the day on May 1 and suggested that they work out an agreement.
Having understood that this was a man of straw, Zama Kurazova soon broke off her contact with him and asked A.Gaitayev, an attorney who constantly cooperated with “Civic Assistance,” to defend her son.
The court hearing that took place on May 2 for altering the measure of restraint from arrest was unsuccessful. Ramzan Aydomirov remained under guard. A. Gaitayev appealed against the determination. He was the one who recommended that Zama Ganievna appeal to Svetlana Gannushkina with a request to give her son personal bail so that he could be freed from guarded confinement. Furthermore, she forwarded a complaint to the Nagatinskaya prosecution (Appendix 14).
The “Civic Assistance” Committee and the Human Rights Center “Memorial” intend to follow the outcome of this case.

In the fall of 2002, Victor Minkin, a migrant from Kazakhstan residing at the time with his family in Germany wrote an e-mail to Svetlana Gannushkina. His daughter’s common law husband, the father of his small grandson Imran Ubaev, was serving a sentence in the Chelyabinsk region on charges of fraud. Minkins were convinced that the case had been fabricated. The term was almost up, and Minkins were hoping to reunite their family. Unexpectedly, a new accusation was made against Imran Ubaev. He was accused of a murder that had been committed in 1996 and the investigation of which had been suspended, having come to a dead end.
The accusation was built solely on the foggy testimony of an individual who was found legally incapable. Clarifying the testimony in court hearings was not possible since its author passed away before the trial began. The court did not take into account the notarized testimony of Victor Minkin and two neighbors from Kazakhstan, confirming that at the time of the murder, Imgran Ubaev was present there and had constant contact with them. This fact and numerous violations of investigation procedure did not prevent federal judge Nelly Vasilievna Chernysheva from rendering a conviction on March 11, 2003 and sentencing the defendant to 14 years of incarceration. An appeal made by the attorney invited by the “Memorial” Human Rights Center was considered on September 5, 2003 in the RF Supreme Court, but was denied. The same happened to the appeal for higher review on December 26, 2003. Work on the case of Imran Ubaev continues at the national as well as the international level: a complaint has been forwarded to the European Court. But there is no hope that it will move along quickly.

It is not possible to insist that criminal charges had been fabricated in every instance but the court’s prejudice is obvious.
Roza Vahaena Ibragimova, the mother of five children, resorted to the “Civic Assistance” Committee a number of times.
Her husband, Rizvan Nazhmudinovich Ibragimov, is an oil-enginner, a former factory director, a candidate of technical sciences and corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences.
Their house in Grozny was destroyed at the outset of the war. The family first moved to the village of Goyta to their relatives where their two year old twins became ill, and Ibragimovs had to leave for Moscow in December 2000.
Doctors determined that the children suffered from chronic bronchitis and the husband was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Hence upon arriving in Moscow, Rizvan Ibragimov immediately went to the hospital. There was nothing to live on. In the summer of 2001, the family left for Chechnya, but it was impossible to remain there and they came back in October. In order to come to Moscow, Roza had to sell her gold jewelry. According to Roza, Rizvan earned a little bit of money helping people to apply for papers, which turned out to be a big problem later. Roza herself visited shrines and mosques to collect money and clothe her children. In her attempt to obtain the certification of a mother of long family she was not refused, but she was asked to bring documents she couldn’t get. She tried to document her husband’s invalidity with the same result. Their registration, which was done through a middleman, was a fake: the elderly owner of the apartment did not even know that someone was registered there. A scandal ensued.
In October 2002, Rizvan Ibragimov was arrested in the city of Yoshkar-Ola. He served the accusation under part 2, Article 291 of the RF criminal code (bribery) for supposedly giving the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Yoshkar-Ola, R. Muhamadeev a bribe in the amount of $1,600 to arrange for and provide travel passports in the first half of 2000.
Roza and the kids were left without assistance. The school where the kids studied told her that she had to obtain some form of registration by the middle of November, but their landlord refused to register his tenants. Occasionally, Ibragimovs received small sums from Rizvan’s brother in Belgium, where he was seeking asylum. The family also received a small sum each month from the “Civic Assistance” Committee.
A petition requesting that Rizvan’s punishment be changed to a declaration of no intention to leave or a personal bail in light of his impeccable record was unsuccessful.
The “Memorial” Human Rights Center provided Ibragimov with a defense attorney. The case was taken on by Fizuli Belofendiev of the “Migration Rights” Network, who commuted to Yoshkar-Ola from Kazan. The court received petitions from Duma deputies and human rights defenders regarding the choice of punishment for Rizvan that would not entail the deprivation of his liberty. They described how Rizvan Ibragimov lived an honest and decent life, was the sole breadwinner in a family with many children, suffered from tuberculosis, and how the crime he had committed did not present danger to the society. The petitioners asked to consider also the fact that RF citizens can lawfully obtain passports where they are located. If this law had been enforced, then no one would ever think of finding roundabout ways to get passports and paying bribes for this.
None of these measures had any effect. R. Muhamadeev, a regular recipient of bribes, behaved assertively and provokingly in court. He gave testimony that redoubled R. Ibragimov’s guilt. The court sentenced Rizvan to two years’ incarceration and the official, the bribe-taker, was given only a suspended sentence.
Roza returned to Chechnya with the children. In March 2004, she asked to forward a petition with a request for early release to the place of her husband’s incarceration. In April 2004, the Sovetskiy area court of Yoshkar-Ola denied Rizvan Ibragimov’s early release for no apparent reason.

VIII. Conclusion

Not long ago, a European non-governmental organization approached me with a request for comments on the conclusion reached by the migration authorities of that country regarding the possibility of deporting Chechens to their homeland. The country has provided refuge to many of our compatriots so we will not name it here, particularly as such a tendency is unfortunately becoming a common one.
We want to conclude our report with a discussion of the instruction by the migration service of this country regarding the possibility of deporting Chechen residents to Russia sent to us by our European colleagues.
The instruction issued by the immigration service was put together on the basis of two trips to Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg and several regions and republics in the Northern Caucasus and the south of Russia) in November 2003 and February 2002. Its run-down is given in the excerpt below.

1. The immigration authorities believe that it is possible to deport to Russia Chechens seeking asylum even when they are registered in Chechnya if they are not themselves victims of individual persecution. Some exceptions are made for single-mother families, the elderly, the sick and invalids. They are considered weak groups.

2. The change from our prior policy (accepting everyone who arrived directly from Chechnya) is based on the fact that the representatives of the immigration organs have learned that proof of registration at the place of residence does not represent such a critical document since fundamental rights (housing, education, medical treatment) are guaranteed to all in any event. Moreover, under the RF Constitution people can contest in court (and win) the decisions of local authorities denying them registration. As a result, there is no reason for making fundamental distinctions between Chechens registered in Chechnya and Chechens registered in other parts of the RF.

3. In some locations (such as Moscow) it is particularly hard to obtain registration. However, there are several other territories (Leningrad area, Volgograd, Tumen, Karachaevo-Cherkesk and Saratov), which are safe for resettlement. Returning individuals do not necessarily need connections in these places.

4. Consequently, the return of Chechens will not trigger chain deportation to Chechnya. There are no examples of forced return of Chechens. There is no federal strategy for squeezing Chechens back into Chechnya, since the conflict is primarily not ethnic in nature but is connected to the political fight against separatists.

5. At the same time, it cannot be said that there exists particular animosity or racism toward Chechens with respect to the administrative difficulties standing in their way. Many emigrants from the Caucasus face the same problems.

6. Migration authorities are critical of the overall value of information provided by the “Memorial.” Conclusions are reached on the basis of arbitrary selection (only the worst cases of administrative persecution of Chechens are discussed, the statistics are oversimplified since the total number of IDPs is over 100,000. The discussion of representative cases is the weakness in the “Memorial” reports, which form the basis for the recommendations of the UNHCR.

We hope that our entire report represents a comment to the above-said, refuting the position of the migration authorities point by point.
With coolness and ease, representatives of the European migration system judge what Chechens can and cannot do in Russia under the the RF Constitution. There is no doubt that the entire ten year Chechen saga does not conform to the Constitution. What is going on in Chechnya is not a reconstruction of the constitutional space, as the first war was dubbed, and not a counter-terrorist operation as the beginning of the second war, which is considered finished in spite of events at Rigahoy and Duba-Yurt, was named. The Constitution demands declaration of the state of emergency on a territory where such operations are being carried out, rather than holding presidential and parliamentary elections.

Having visited receptions of community organizations, European representatives saw a few small non-governmental entities striving to somehow help Chechen residents to get through these tough times. At the price of tremendous effort and with a success that is far from universal, we struggle for their registration, help them obtain critical documents. Sometimes they cannot even officially register a marriage without our help. The legal system is highly ineffective: a trial based on a complaint against denial of a three-month registration can stretch out for half a year.
We almost always succeed in getting children enrolled in schools and struggle to resolve the issue of medical assistance. Occasionally we are able to help Chechens to find employment. But these are exactly the cases that are not representative, because only a minority of people can reach our reception rooms, and the system of social security for Chechnya residents doesn’t work.
How does a European envision resettlement to a safe region, even if we imagine that there exists a safe place for Chechens in the Russian Federation? A European would sell his house and property, load something in the car and ride with his family to another inhabited locality with a credit card from his bank in his pocket. Once there, the family stays at a hotel for a while, searching for a house and some work, registers with the social security and begins a life in a place where neighbors and authorities are more hospitable.
But Chechen residents deported to Russia have no bank accounts, no car, and no property. Everything has long been sold, the money that had been borrowed are spent. They return to Russia with 100 euros in their pockets that were given out by magnanimous migration authorities. This money will most likely be taken away at the border checkpoint. How can anyone start a new life in a “safe region” when he has no money, no roof over his head, and no prospects for finding a job? That is why the majority of deportees go to Chechnya where they find only ruins and the danger of being mistaken for a fighter.
The notion of chain deportation* doesn’t apply here. After all, Russia did not recognize Chechen independence and cannot deport a Chechen to his homeland. But to insist that there are no examples of coercive return of Chechens and no federal strategy for pressing them back to Chechnya means to close one’s eyes to the obvious.
One might have agreed that the conflict is not ethnic in nature. Yet the persecution is exactly of such a type: fraudulent criminal cases, firing, insults, encroachment on human dignity. Besides, as a rule, when speaking of what is happening in Chechnya, we use the term “Chechen residents,” not “Chechens,” since shootings, bombardment and even abductions concern everyone who was unable to find shelter in a new location. For a long time, we did not dare tell the story of a young man from Grozny of Russian ethnicity, Nikita Dmitrienko, who almost paid with his life for not supporting soldiers who threatened Chechens with short shrift. The valiant warriors let him live only because they were too drunk to do otherwise. Nikita’s mother was killed for trying to make sure that those who maimed her son were ultimately punished. Today, Nikita is safe in a country that gave him refuge (Appendix 15, 16).

Statistics are a useful thing. Statistical analysis can be a good starting point for choosing the right direction for one’s investigation. However, when the preservation of human life is at issue, a statistical approach is intolerable. In addition to being inhumane, it could be properly called ignorant. Professor James Hathaway is the highest authority in the field of migration law. Discussing the problem of security, Professor Hathaway asks his audience the following question: “We are going to take a coffee break. There are five exits in the auditorium. A submachine gunner is standing at one of the doors and shooting down those who pass. But that’s only one of the doors!

Who wants to go have a cup coffee?”

*) “Chain deportation” is the notion describing the return of asylum seekers in stages, from country to country, to the state of their origin.

Appendix 1

“Civic Assistance” Commitee

To whom it may concern
Testimonial

What follows is our account of how human rights were observed in the process of conscription in the Chechen Republic and what the Chechen boys had to endure when serving in the Russian Army.
For the third year running 18 year old boys who live permanently in Chechnya have been conscripted. Their number is not large: Chechen families with boys of the corresponding age do their best to keep them away from the republic, and from the army.
When conscripted young Chechens are inevitably persecuted since, regrettably, the army is contaminated with what is known as “dedovshchina” (humiliations and insults to which first-year solders are subjected), nationalism that leads to interethnic conflicts and other forms of violations of law and order in the army. Since Chechens are never in the majority in any of the units, they become easy prey. Men from the Caucasus are taught not to bear insults without retaliating, which aggravates the situation together with the anti-Chechen sentiment pervasive in the army and society as a whole. The Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers observed these violations in one of the army units deployed in the Moscow region where Chechens were sent for military service.
We are aware of several crimes against conscripted Chechens; even though crimes are committed against soldiers of other nationalities, Chechens paid with their lives for their ethnic origin.
Liliana Zhidaeva from Grozny, the common law wife of Ramzan Isaev and the mother of his child, applied to us for help. Her husband was conscripted in 2002 and sent to the settlement of Mirny in the Archangelsk Region (military unit No. 1487); he was promoted to the rank of corporal, which means that he was a good serviceman. He was due home in October 2003, and in July 2003 he wrote to his wife: “We shall meet in October if I am still alive by that time.”
They never met: on 3 August 2003 Ramzan Isaev was killed by Denis Rykov, his fellow serviceman, who had had a criminal record and had been charged in court with stealing. Rykov mortally wounded Isaev by shooting him with a device he made himself. In the hospital surgeons extracted 47 nails bits from Isaev’s abdomen.
Soon after that Isaev’s parents were informed that their son had been killed “by another servicemen who acted in self-defense..”
A criminal case was brought and an investigation initiated only when we organized an inquiry from a State Duma deputy.
On October 28, 2003 D. Rykov was charged with murder under Art 105 Part 1.
The hearing of the case in court began in December 2003; the defense revived the “self-defense” version (Art 108) with which the court agreed on the grounds that Isaev had allegedly extorted 1000 rubles from Rykov. The commanders confirmed this even though none of them had received any complaints from Rykov.
The killer was given a minimal suspended sentence while the family of the murdered man has not yet received compensation; his little daughter was granted a survivor’s pension. This happened because it had not been recognized that Ramzan Isaev perished while serving in the army—his death was described as an accident.

Regrettably, those who serve in the Chechen Republic are not safe: 10 Chechen soldiers who served in the village of Shatoi in a rifle company reconnaissance platoon died under dubious circumstances.
On August 6, 2002 the platoon driving back, having fulfilled its assignment. Fifty meters away from the commandant’s office, the lorry with the Chechen soldiers was blown up on a radio-controlled mine. Immediately after that, commander Colonel Bondarenko ordered to open machinegun fire at the wounded and dying soldiers. The military from the commandant’s office were firing from the roof and from the yard. Ten minutes later Colonel Bondarenko ordered to stop the fire but nobody heard him; the machine-gunner was taken down from the roof by force.
Ten soldiers died: private Arstab Visaevich Iandarbiev; corporal Timurkhan Sup’ianovich Elembaev; sergeant Zurap Saidullaevich Mazaev; private Said Salovdinovich Al’sultanov; private Astmir Abu-Saidovich Shamaev; sergeant-major Magomed Said-Magomedovich Isaev; junior sergeant Abu-Sup’ian Bataev; private Magomed Saidovich Saratov; and private Sayputdin Dukhaevich Aiubov.
Deputy administration head Ruslan Demel’khanov promptly arrived and called a helicopter from Khankala to carry the wounded to the hospital. In the hour and a half that it took for the helicopter to arrive two of the wounded had died. The situation called for a postmortem examination; the investigation team arrived two days later even though it is widely known that Muslims bury their dead the same day before sunset or early the following morning. Nobody asked the relatives to postpone the burials so the investigation could be conducted.
On August 12 Acting Commander of the Joint Army Group Makarov and military commandant of the Chechen Republic Kizuin arrived in Shatoi and informed the relatives of the dead that the names of those responsible for the terrorist act had been found out. They were S. Chabaev, U. Ozdamirov and A. Magomadov killed on August 10 in a skirmish at the village of Komsomol’skoe, one of whom had allegedly confessed just before he died. To confirm their words Makarov and Kiziun demonstrated passports riddled with bullets, a map of the village of Shatoi with a cross at the place of the explosion and 3500 fake U.S. dollars. The local people did not trust them. First, there were no traces of blood on the passports; second, the map looked suspiciously crisp—it was highly unlikely that it had been kept in somebody’s pockets for several days. Everything smacked of a crude fraud.
It later came to light that the FSC had detained the three men in the center of Grozny on July 30, six days before the explosion. Nobody knows what happened to them: their relatives were told that they had been killed in a battle; none of the relatives were interrogated; they never received the dead bodies.
After August 6 the local people no longer trusted the military.
Deputy administration head R. Demel’khanov insists that it was impossible to plant the mine 50 meters away from the commandant’s office—the military controlled an area at least 500 m wide.
Eyewitness accounts reveal many strange circumstances.
A woman who had been trading in the market since 7 a.m. said that cars and lorries passed the place of the future explosion safely. This means that a demolition sapper spent several hours waiting at the office.
The explosion was so narrowly targeted that the lorry driver remained safe. According to private Vakha Salgiriev who was driving in the cabin, the driver left the lorry after the explosion and marched to the office. Vakha who was shell-shocked helped carry the wounded to the yard.
He described what he saw as follows:
“Umar Shamaev was the first to be brought to the yard. While I was leaving the yard they started shooting from behind. I shouted: ‘Stop it! What are you doing!’ Colonel Okolelov who had rushed to the lorry picked up stones and hurled them at those who were shooting. He shouted but soldiers were pouring out of the building to take positions. They had obviously been given orders. Our boys were done for. The shooters were 70 meters away on the roof—they could not clearly see the lorry and those who were in it. It was one of the commandant’s office lorries, an open one, without tarpaulin.”
None of the Russian officers and privates, who were in fact comrades-in-arms of the dead soldiers, offered their condolences to the families. One of their mothers who called the office to inquire about her son received the following answer: “Don’t worry, mother. Everything’s OK. Some ‘Chekhs’ went flying!”
This crime remained undetected; Military Commandant of the Shatoi District, Colonel Bondarenko, kept his post while company commander Ruslan Duzaev who had given Colonel Bondarenko a piece of his mind was discharged from the service, his company was disbanded.
On February 25, 2004 a former private of the same company Bislan Abuiazovich Isaev was detained by Russian military; between February 27 and March 2 local people picketed and organized rallies to protest against the abduction. His relatives appealed to the local public prosecutor’s office. On April 1, 2004 there was still no information about him.
The above suggests that military service in the Russian army is much more dangerous for Chechens than for young men of other ethnic groups.

Chairperson of the Civic Assistance Committee
Head of the Migration Rights Network of the Memorial Human Rights Center
Member of the Human Rights Commission at the RF President
Svetlana Gannushkina

Appendix 2

A Dangerous Symptom
The Abduction and Persecution of Women in the Chechen Republic
January 2004

In May 2002 a seminar attended by human rights activists, officials of the migration and passport-and-visa services and judges from the Chechen Republic was held in Kislovodsk. A contribution from Muguev, an official of the Passport-and-Visa Service of the Chechen Republic invited a question from Lydia Iusupova, head of the reception office of the Memorial HRC in Grozny. She asked about passport-checking at the Kavkaz checkpoint and about derisive comments on the passport of one of the women living in Grozny. “Do you know that this woman stood the risk of disappearing?” she asked. The answer was an emotional one: “This is not true, there is an order not to detain women.”
Obviously, since that time the order has been changed—today law enforcement structures are looking not only for male bandits and terrorists but also for female suicide bombers. Female names have started appearing on the lists of abducted and missing people in Chechnya.
The events of early 2004 suggest that the order not to detain women was cancelled. In January 2004, 9 women were unlawfully detained, 7 of them are considered missing.
Lipkhan Bazaeva who works at the HRC Memorial office in Nazran was also persecuted.

On January 4, 2004, after 11 p.m. masked and armed strangers drove on three UAZ vans to house 123, apartment 11 on Maiakovski St., Staropromyslovskiy District, Grozny, and carried away by force five members of the same family:
1. Gambulatova Petimat Khumparovna, born in 1945 (head of the family)
2. Musaeva Luiza Shitaevna, 1973 (daughter)
3. Musaeva Liza Shitaevna, 1975 (daughter)
4. Musaeva Salmatu Shitaevna, 1965 (daughter, Khusiev in marriage)
5. Musaev Magomed Shitaevich, 1977 (son)
According to eyewitnesses, three UAZ vans drove to house 123 late at night. Armed people in camouflage fatigues (they probably belonged to one of the federal law-enforcement structures) surrounded the house; some of them entered. Before they reached the right apartment they entered two other ones: No. 55 and No. 10 inhabited by the Iusupov family. Having checked their documents and having established that they were not the people they were looking for the military left their apartment.
The third attempt proved successful: they found the people enumerated above in the apartment as well as Magomed’s wife Milana with their baby and Liza’s two small children. The Musaev sisters are both married and live separately with their families. They had come to visit their mother shortly before the events described.
The military entered the apartment, read out aloud the names of the family members and ordered them to get ready to leave. They advised them to dress warmly. No explanations were given. Petimat Khumparovna Gambulatova, her three daughters (Luiza, Liza and Slamatu) and her son Magomed were led out, put into the van that was waiting and driven off in an unknown direction.
On the next day the Musaevs’ relatives applied to the district internal affairs office; the apartment was visited by a group of investigators and operatives of the public prosecutor’s office and militia.
Earlier, on December 25, 2003 unidentified people driving a VAZ 21099 car (silver-colored, with toned-glass windows and without license plates) abducted another member of the same family Akhmad Shitaevich Musaev (born in 1986) from a bus stop and took him to an unknown location. Two days later his friend (whose name in not known) abducted together with Akhmad was thrown out of a car in the Sobachevka neighborhood with traces of severe beating. He could tell nothing about who had abducted them, where they had been kept and what happened to Akhmad Musaev.

People from the Memorial HRC managed to meet Khumid Musaev, brother of Petimat Gambulatova; he supplied details about the abduction of his sister and her family.
He had the following to say about the abduction of Akhmad Musaev:
“On that day we invited people for movlid (prayer), this was three days after we had buried our mother. Akhmad’s friend came from the village of Pervomaiskaia to express his condolences. Some time later Akhmad went out to accompany his friend to a bus stop. Later still people told us that unidentified individuals had abducted Akhmad together with his friend. They told us that a silver-colored VAZ-21099 with toned-glass windows without license plates had driven up. Three men in camouflage fatigues (two of them masked) forced both young men into the car and drove in the direction of the city.”

On January 9, 2004 during the day several unidentified armed masked people who spoke Russian and were driving UAZ vans abducted the following people from their homes and carried them away in an unknown direction:
Aldamova Madina Idrisovna, 1972, who lives on M. Mazaev St.;
Sambiev Aslan Ruslanovich, 1979, who lives in house 89, Kh. Nuradilov St.;
Baigiriev Anzor Vakhaevich, 1974, who lives on Argunskaia St.
On the morning of January 9 their relatives applied to the district internal affairs department and the prosecutor’s office of the Grozny-Sel’skiy district and supplied all the relevant details. An investigated team searched the locations where the abductions had taken place for traces.
On January 10, relatives and other people from the same village blocked the federal highway Grozny-Shatoi-Itum-Kale, demanding that authorities at all levels pay attention to the abductions and launch an active search for the victims. They were especially indignant with the abduction of the young woman. At noon, after insistent requests from her father Idris Aldamov the highway was deblocked and people went home. Aldamov told the people that the authorities had promised him and the relatives of the other abductees that they would carefully investigate the case.
On January 11 Aslan Sambiev was set free; the military brought him back to his house. Afraid of another detention, Aslan does not live at home.
On January 12 unidentified people left Madina Aldamova in the town of Argun with tied hands and a sack on her head. She is too frightened to divulge any details.
Neighbors of the Aldanovs said that in the wee hours of January 9 (about 2:30 a.m.) unidentified people had broken the door and entered the house. They obviously knew the house well; without hesitation, they went to the room Madina shared with her aunt.
The parents who slept in the next room were blocked in it; the unidentified people told them to keep quiet and assured the father that the girl would be set free after an interrogation.
On January 10 her father went to the military deployed on the village outskirts to find out where his daughter was kept. The military denied any knowledge of the abduction and of the place where Madina could have been kept.
According to neighbors Madina Aldamova was employed by a humanitarian organization working with refugees in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia. She had stayed in Georgia from the very beginning of the hostilities and returned home on the eve of the abduction. This was probabyl the reason for her abduction.

On 15 January 2004 at about 2:00 p.m. armed and masked servicemen of the Russian power structures detained Elza Adievna Gaytamirova, born in 1973, who lives in house 31, Budenny St., the village of Gekhi, Urus-Martan District.
Here is what her mother Roza Gaytamirova who witnessed the apprehension had to say:
“Together with Elza we were returning from the town of Urus-Martan where we had met deputy administration head of the Urus-Martan District Abdulla Kovraev, who is responsible for the law-enforcement structures.
“It was about 2 p.m. when we reached our house; suddenly two VAZ-21099 cars without license plates stopped in front of our gates. Armed people in masks and camouflage fatigues got out of the cars and started pushing my daughter into a car. They never explained anything and never said who they were. Having forced Elza into the car they drove away.
“I went immediately back to the district center to appeal to the administrative and law-enforcement structures but failed to learn anything at all about the place she was taken to.
“To this day I know nothing of what my daughter could have been guilty of; she has four children, the eldest is less than 9; her husband Rumid-Babek Khomadovich Isaev, born in the village of Kulary, has been missing since 2001.”
Elza Gaytamirova had been repeatedly detained and has even been listed as missing.
Russian power structures detained her for the first time in the early morning hours of October 11, 2003.
She was taken to the Urus-Martan department of internal affairs; twenty-four hours later she was handed over to the administration head of the Gekhi village; she returned home, yet the reasons for her detention remained unclear.
On December 1 she received a summons to the Urus-Martan department of internal affairs; on December 2, 2003 she went there and did not return.
It was at that time that Roza Gaytamirova told one of our employees:
“On December 2, 2003 my daughter went to the Urus-Martan department of internal affairs; she was summoned there. She went of her own free will but did not return on that day or the next one.
“On December 3 I went to the militia station where the head of the criminal department told me that my daughter had been detained. I was given no information about the reasons for her detention or about the term for which she was to be detained. The head of the criminal department first told me that she would be freed on the next day; later he added that this could be done after the elections.
“Several days later I learned that my daughter was not kept in the militia station. According to the same criminal department head she was carried away to Grozny. Since that time I have been visiting the Urus-Martan department of internal affairs every day, yet I have been given no opportunity to speak to any official there. I don’t know why my daughter was detained; I don’t know where they keep her. I do not ask what she is accused of. Even though I am not educated I know that the relevant organs should have offered this information to me.
“I learned from unofficial sources that she is kept in the Ministry of the Interior of the Chechen republic, but I have received no official confirmation of this.”
On January 2 Elza Gaytamirova was freed; she said that she had been kept in Urus-Martan.
As follows from the above she was abducted two weeks later, on 15 January; nobody knows where she is kept.

On January 19, 2004 at 1:40 a.m. Luiza Mutaeva, born 1984, who temporarily lived with her family in the village of Assinovskaia, Sunzha District, in the Bershanskaia St., house 60 was abducted. According to her mother, Sovdat Dumatovna Mutaeva, born 1948, more than twenty Russian military men drove up to their house. Only six of them did not wear masks. A Zhiguli 2107 car headed the cavalcade; it was followed by two UAZ 496 cars, one Gazel van and two UAZ 452 (commonly called tablets.) A silver-colored Zhiguli 21099 was bringing up the rear. These were the cars Sovdat Mutaeva saw with her own eyes.
Later her neighbors told her that there had been cars with Russian military on neighboring streets. They probably blocked the area in case members of her family tried to flee.
The military knocked on the door when the family was already asleep. Her husband Daud Ferzauli (a one-legged disabled person) woke up first and woke his wife. He said: “Somebody’s come.”
Sovdat Mutaeva asked in Chechen “Mila vu tsigakh?” (Who is there?) without opening the door. Somebody answered in Russian: “Open the door, were are checking passports.”
She was convinced that the military was behind the door yet she answered that it was wrong time to check passports. “Open the door yourself,” they shouted from behind it. “We have an order.”
Sovdat knew that they would enter even if they had to break down the door. She opened it.
The military in muddy boots rushed into the room. Sovdat said: “Wait, this is not a doghouse,” and removed the carpet.
When asked by one of the military about the male members of the family, she answered that only her husband Daud Ferzauli (1930) was at home together with her twelve-year-old son Eliskhan. Her elder son Isa Mutaev had been detained by Akhmad Kadyrov’s security service on January 21, 2003 and had been missing since that time.
Sovdat Mutaeva said that her elder son was detained a year before—she naturally did not go into the details.
The military asked for the passports; they looked through them and gave them back. She thought that they were leaving but, at that point, they turned to the two daughters who were in the neighboring room (Luiza Mutaeva, 1984, and Madina Mutaeva, 1988) and suddenly said: “Gather your belongings and put on warm kerchiefs—it will be cold.” The girls asked where they would be taken. “Don’t be afraid,” the soldiers said. “Go with us to the car. We will interrogate you there and let you go.”
The younger sister started crying. One of the military men, in a mask, turned to her and said: “Don’t worry. We will ask questions and let you go. I promise that nothing bad will happen to you.” Madina Mutaeva said later that she had noticed that the man spoke Russian with a pronounced accent.
As the military were taking the girls out their mother tried to interfere. They pushed her away easily, the same happened to their shouting disabled father. At the door Luiza Mutaeva said pointing to her younger sister: “She will stay at home. I will go alone with you” and pushed Madina back into the room. The military looked at her and said “OK.”
According to Sovdat Mutaeva the military paid no attention at her 12-old-son who was very tall for his age. She is convinced that they came to detain the daughters.
Even though the military tried to keep her inside, she went out and saw a Gazel van parked there. Through the open door she saw her handcuffed daughter. Luiza tried to calm down her mother saying that nothing would happen contrary to Allah’s will: if He willed it she would be back.
Sovdat Mutaeva clutched the door and insisted that she be taken together with her daughter. She was torn away and pushed away from the van. Luiza was forced into the van, the door was closed, the military boarded their cars and drove away from the Assinovskaia village. Sovdat Mutaeva had no idea what their destination was. She noticed, however, that none of the cars and vans carried state registration numbers.
Without going back into the house Sovadt and her younger daughter rushed to the local administration office where the local militia station is situated. They found the office empty—there was nobody on duty there.
Knowing that it was useless to look for the local administration head at home—he avoided spending nights in his house—they went back to their home. There they discovered that the military had searched the sisters’ bedroom and had taken away all the family videos together with taped Indian films. Nothing else was missing.
The following day Sovdat went to the district center, the Achkhoi-Martan village; there she went to the servicemen of the so-called Kadyrov units; she said that they had gone together to the district offices of the RF FSC and district militia. Her daughter was not there either. The Kadyrov people thought that the girl had been taken away by special services, the FSC, who came directly from Khankala.
Nazarbek Terkhoev, administration head of the Assinovskaia village, failed to learn anything new about Luiza Mutaeva either. He visited all the law-enforcement structures of the Achkhoi-Martan District and concluded that she should be searched for in Khankala. He said that he had no connections there.
Luiza Mutaeva is one of the sisters of Malizha Mutaeva, 1971, who probably was among those who captured the Dubrovka theater in Moscow. After that, on December 3 or 4, 2002, at about 6:00 a.m. her family house in the village of Assinovskaia (D. Bedny St., 12) was blasted by the Russian military. Her father and mother, Daud Ferzauli and Sovdat Mutaeva, asleep in the house luckily escaped death.
Investigative organs never questioned the Mutaev-Ferzauli family about their daughter’s possible involvement in capturing the Moscow theater; they had never been shown lists of those who died there, nobody invited them to identify dead bodies.
Only once, on January 20, 2003, a day before his abduction, their son Isa Mutaev was summoned to the Department of Internal Affairs of the Sunzha District where he was shown photos of the dead female participants in the action and invited to identify his sister. He could not do that—according to his account, she was not in the photos presented to him.

On January 19, 2004 a group of masked soldiers abducted Milana Beslanovna Ozdoeva, 1982, from her house in the village of Katyr-Iurt, Achkhoi-Martan District, Lenin St., 68.
Those who came to detain her did not offer any explanation and said that they were following orders.
Until the beginning of 2004 Milana Ozdoeva (this is her married name), mother of two small children, lived in Ingushetia together with relatives of her husband. Early in January when her husband was killed she went back to her parents living in Katyr-Iurt.
On December 29, 2003, even before their daughter joined them, the military visited her parents and asked her mother Luibov Dubas where her daughter might be living. The mother, concerned about her daughter’s safety, asked Chersy Gataev who acted as head of the local department of internal affairs who had been inquiring about her daughter and why. Gataev admitted that the FSC did indeed show interest in her daughter but never disclosed the reasons of this interest.
On January 5 when Milana had already arrived to the village and was in the administration building where her mother worked, she met government officials but she did not know from which organ. One of them presented himself as Mikhail Evseev. He said to Milana: “We have got information that you plan to become a suicide bomber.” Milana answered: “I am the mother of two small children and plan nothing of this sort.” When leaving the man advised her mother to look after her daughter.
On January 9 the military visited Milana Ozdoeva in her parents’ house. The same man informed Milana that somebody had allegedly used her passport and already left for Russia. In response Milana showed her passport and said that it was their job to know who traveled with false documents.
After the abduction that happened on December 19 her mother applied to the local administration of internal affairs, the FSC, the prosecutor’s office and administration of the Achkhoi-Martan District—none of them supplied information about her daughter’s whereabouts.
Liubov Dubas, Milana’s mother, has the following to say about the abduction:
“At about two in the morning a group of soldiers in masks rushed into our house through the door that they had broken, and the window. There were many of them—about 15 people, all armed with small weapons. They beat up my husband and his brother; threatening with their weapons, they forced them to lie on the floor. Then they checked our passports though not Milana’s. The military said that they were taking her away. I tried to interfere: “You’ve been here several times before, don’t take her away.” One of them answered: “We are the military and have to obey orders.” Having realized that they were determined to take her away we began gathering our things too. The military interrupted us by saying: “You woman will stay here.” To Milana they said: “What are you doing dressing the baby?” My daughter explained that she was breast-feeding and could not leave the baby behind. The military pushed her away from the baby and took her out. My last question was: “Where are you taking her?” The answer was: “We promise that she will be back safe—she will return before lunch.”

On January 22, 2004, at night, unidentified armed people took Gulzhana Abdullaeva, 1985, from her home in the Assinovskaia village, Sunzha District (Tsentral’naia Usad’ba St., 52). Shortly before that, on the same night, her father Apani Saypievich Abdullaev (ethnic Daghestanian) had been taken away by the military. Her father worked as a dentist in the Assinovskaia farm.
At about 1:00 a.m. armed people in masks and camouflage fatigues forced their way into Abdullaev’s apartment and took the head of the family out. On hearing shouts neighbors tried to interfere but the soldiers opened preventive sub-machine-gun fire. There were more than ten of them, they came in several vans. They put Apani into one of them, a gray UAZ.
By his account, he was taken to an abandoned garden outside Assinovskaia; there were about thirty military, Russians and Chechens. They took Apani out of the car and stared beating him—they wanted to know the names of the local Wahhabis. They were especially interested in a certain amir (Abdullaev did not remember his name.) He knew neither the Wahhabites nor their amir. The military did not like this and continued to kick him with their feet and beat him with the butts of their guns. Some time later they brought Gulzhana to the orchard and continued beating her father in front of her having explained that if he continued withholding information they would beat up his daughter. Apani fainted. The military drove away leaving the father and daughter behind in the garden. Gulzhana said that the military had not beaten her.

Eliza Musaeva, Memorial HRC

Appendix 3

«MEMORIAL» HUMAN RIGHTS CENTER
Russia, Moscow, 103051, М. Karetny Pereulok 12
tel.: (095) 200-6506, fax: (095) 209-5779,
E-mail: memhrc@memo.ru
Web-site: www.memo.ru

The “Voluntary Surrender” of Magomed Khambiev

Magomed Khambiev, a well-known field commander close to Aslan Maskhadov, defense minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, voluntarily laid down his arms and surrendered. On March 8, 2004 Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the security service of Chechen Republic President Akhmad Kadyrov, presented him to journalists in the village of Tsentoroy, Kurchaloy District.
For those who know little about backstage politics this came as a surprise. Khambiev was fighting side by side with Maskhadov from the very beginning during the first war and remained his close associate between the wars—in this respect he differed from those “radicals” who, at previous stages had been fighting against Maskhadov, and joined his ranks during the second war. Khambiev remained with Maskhadov all the time—unlike certain other well-known field commanders such as Ruslan Gelaev. In fact, during the second military campaign Magomed Khambiev was the separatists’ defense minister. His voluntary surrender therefore came as a surprise.
Closer scrutiny revealed that there were really no surprises: he himself, his family and tens and thousands of his close and distant relatives had been put in a situation in which his surrender became inevitable. Here is our version of these events.

***
According to the official version presented by Ramzan Kadyrov and published by the Kommersant newspaper on March 9, 2004 nine of Khambiev’s fighters were detained in several villages of the Nozhai-Iurt District without a single shot being fired. They were offered an option: either prison or “voluntary surrender.” They preferred the latter. (According to the Regional Operational Staff by March 5, 21 fighters from Khambiev’s unit had laid down their weapons.) Then Khambiev’s house in the village of Benoi, Nozhai-Iurt District, was surrounded. Magomed escaped while his male relatives who lived in the house were detained. All of them, except two young men were soon set free. Ramzan Kadyrov told them to persuade their relative to surrender and promised to free the two young men if he did. As a result, on March 8 Khambiev was either captured or surrendered of his own free will or was persuaded by the village elders.
Ramzan Kadyrov offered a different version to the Russkiy Kur’er newspaper that appeared in its March 10, 2004 issue. “We surrounded his house in Benoi and were negotiating with him for three days.” “Does this mean that you made him an offer he could not refuse?” “Yes, that’s true.” On the first day of blockade 16 people surrendered, on the second, three more, on the third, Magomed Khambiev himself.”
Obviously, the same man told two slightly different stories. The “Memorial” HRC collected information from different sources, including that supplied by eyewitnesses from the Nozhai-Iurt District and by Khambiev’s relations that casts doubt on the official version

***
Late in February all structures formally controlled by Akhmad Kadyrov (the security service, the republican riot police, the Vostok special battalion of the military commandant office headed by Sulim Iamadaev and a Chechen battalion of special forces of the Main Intelligence Department of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces under Said-Magomed Kakiev) gathered in Gudermes for a parade. Kadyrov and his mufti Shamaev arrived there to announce a “jihad” against the forces of Chechen resistance and explained that this was the most righteous “jihad” as opposed to all the others (including the “jihad” Kadyrov himself had announced during the first war.)
These units then moved to the Nozhai-Iurt District; there were over 100 cars and vans (Zhuguli-21099, UAZ-469, UAZ-452 vans, widely known as “tabletka”) supported by armored machines and helicopters. On February 29 mass detentions were carried out in the villages of Meskety, Benoi and Turty-Khutor (which can be described as abductions.) Relatives of Umar and Magomed Khambiev who had held high posts in the Maskhadov government were victims. In the Turty-Khutor nearly half of its population, both men and women were detained.
The operation was not limited to the Nozhai-Iurt District. On March1, in Grozny two medical students of the Chechen State University were detained during classes: 19-year-old first year student Aslambek Khambiev and sixth year student Shita Khambiev. This triggered massive unrest: their fellow students gathered for a rally outside the government office and demanded that their comrades be set free. At first the authorities tried to intimidate the students, then they promised to find the young men and liberate them. As a result, Aslambek Khambiev was set free on Thursday March 4. He was found in Benoi half-conscious after being hrown out of a car with sign of having been heavily beaten. On March 9 he was still in poor condition in a hospital. No one knows anything about Shita Khambiev.
Finally, female relatives of the Khambievs who had married in other villages were detained by Kadyrov’s people—a previously unheard of practice. When a sister of Aslambek Khambiev who lived with her husband and children in Gudermes was being arrested, her teenage son was gravely wounded. She was taken away together with her husband who was later freed. She remained in the headquarters of Ramzan Kadyrov.
According to the officials on the Ministry of the Interior of Chechnya 16 people (5 women among them) were arrested and taken to places of official detention. In reality, it seems that over 40 people (the lower estimate supplied by one of the relatives) or even more (up to 200) according to local people were detained. They were kept in different places—in the temporary detention center at the local militia station of the Nozhai-Iurt District; in oil tanks dug in at the village of Benoi and in Gudermes, in two places in which no detained people could officially be kept: the headquarters of Ramzan Kadyrov’s security service and the headquarters of Sulim Iamadaev’s special battalion.
After that a “special operation” against Magomed Khambiev himself was initiated. Through intermediaries he was offered a choice: either immediate surrender or his relatives (old people and women included) would face an unenviable fate. Obviously these were not empty threats.
Magomed Khambiev preferred “voluntary surrender.” In fact, the Chechens would have never approved of a different decision: it was contrary to the local customs and traditions to buy one’s freedom at the expense of the freedom and lives of relatives.
This shows that the “operation” was much wider than three days of encirclement of one house in one village. For ten days people were detained across the republic (not only in Nozhai-Iurt but also in Gudermes and Grozny) for the sole reason of belonging to the Khambiev family. He was forced to surrender—the aim was achieved. True, the means and methods look unseemly—the taking of hostages, threats, and blackmail. Isn’t that called terrorism?

Appendix 4

The Migration Situation in the Gudermes District

Temporary Placement Points
Until summer 2002 there were two temporary placement points to house internally displaced persons (the former hostel of a biochemical plant—a five-story building on Depovskaia St., 76) and a former building of the kindergarten that belonged to PMK-6 (Makhachkalinskaia St., 60.) These buildings turned hostels during the first war housed 130 families from the Nozhai-Iurt and Vedeno districts and from Gudermes (families whose houses had been burned down.)
The buildings were not registered as temporary placement points; therefore their dwellers were left to their own devices. M. Gezimieva who headed the district administration said that there were no IDPs in her district and insisted that they all should go home. Several meetings between Memorial representatives and Abastov, the new administration head, had produced certain positive results: the authorities turned their attention to those who lived there, appointed a supervisor, sorted things out, organized a kitchen, etc. The administration has no money to do everything that should be done: the buildings need renovation, the corridor windows need glass, the building needs heating in winter and properly functioning plumbing; it was people themselves who set up gas and electricity in their rooms. There is no medical aid, no washing facilities; the roofs are leaking while the basements are flooded. People, children especially, are ill.
The Russian Red Cross is the only stable source of humanitarian aid.
Registration was another stumbling block—the local passport-and-visa service extorted bribes and formalized only month-long registrations.
In the summer 2002 two more temporary placement points were opened in Gudermes: in a five-story building next to the already functioning center and in a former kindergarten not far from the district administration office. According to the official version the first is populated by IDPs from Ingushetia, the second was given to the Vainakh dancers and actors of the local drama theater.
In fact, the majority of those now living in the freshly renovated five-story building did not come from Ingushetia—they came from the mountainous areas (the Kurchaloi and Nozhai-Iurt districts) seeking safety in the valley. Up in the mountains they were victims of the arbitrary imposition of will on the part of the federal troops. They were driven away from their homes by frequent shelling, mopping-up operations and abductions. The situation in the Gudermes District is calmer. Villages in the mountains are abandoned—those who lived in them bought documents proving that they had stayed in Ingushetia to be able to move to the newly opened temporary placement points.
Those who come from the tent camps in Ingushetia are denied rooms in the temporary placement points under the pretext that there are no vacancies. At the same time, IDPs insist that there are vacant rooms in the new center that have also been sold; they are kept locked while their owners appear to come only to collect humanitarian aid. The residents say that there are 312 people actually living in the building while about 1300 are on the rosters.
The living conditions in the building on Depovskaia St (No. 74) do not meet any accepted standard: the heating system depends on electricity while the power transformer is switched off most of the time. The rooms are cold, electric stoves in the corridors cannot be used because there is no power supply (each family had to pay 400-500 rubles to organize a gas supply.) Water is taken from a reservoir some 100 meters from the building or brought from private houses nearby. There is no plumbing—people use an outdoor toilet. The door is locked at 9 p.m.—latecomers risk being locked out. The kitchen is not functional, there are no laundry facilities: the kitchen, indoor toilets and laundry are filled with residents. There are no stoves—so people cannot boil water or cook in their rooms.
Throughout the entire period of the point’s functioning, people were given fresh bedding only twice.
The authorities are losing interest in the IDPs by the day: back in the summer of 2002 when the first residents were moving in the migration service distributed humanitarian aid once in 10 days and bread was distributed daily. With time foodstuffs started arriving once a month, then once every two months; until recently bread was distributed every two days. The food parcels contain only tea, canned meat and condensed milk and their quality leaves much to be desired.
The local people complain that garbage is not collected—with time a huge garbage heap has formed behind the building that may breed infectious diseases when the summer heat arrives.
Those of the IDPs who rent rooms in private houses are in an even worse position: they pay rent and do not receive any kind of aid. Nobody knows how many people rent rooms in private houses: the district has no migration service to deal with issues concerning migrants. In the fall of 2002 internal migration reached mass proportions; entire villages in mountainous areas emptied, their residents moving to the valley, mainly to the Gudermes District.

The Situation of IDPs from the Mountain Villages
Late in the summer of 2002 another migration flow from the mountains in the east of the Chechen Republic (Nozhai-Iurt, Vedeno, and Kurchaloi districts) reached the valleys. In the past people had moved down temporarily: they left their homes when active hostilities got too close and went back to their homeland when calm was restored. Despite constant shelling and cleansing operations, they preferred their own basements and dug-outs to hazardous driving along the roads. The guerilla warfare that followed the active phase of the war did not improve the situation in the mountains. Any activity of the fighters invited retaliation by the federal forces against civilians: mopping up operations deprived people of cattle and property; people were arrested and taken away. Some of them disappeared without a trace; the dead bodies of others were left for their relatives to find. Blockades were one of the most favored methods: for several days villagers were blocked in their villages—they could not bring fodder, go down to the valley for foodstuffs or medical aid. The situation became so intolerable that local people were practically squeezed out of their native places. The local intelligentsia and heads of local administrations found themselves in a quandary: fighters killed them for cooperation with the federal authorities (meaning merely doing their jobs) while the federals did not like them because they tried to protect common people against the military. The most respected village residents fell victim to both sides; their murders, in particular, sowed fear and distress. For example, the murder of Baudi Abusalamov, head of the Kurchaloi administration, and his wife Nina Ivanovna Pankonina (the local teacher who dedicated her life to children) (shortly before that their daughter had been killed in Grozny) was the last drop for the villagers of Verkhnie, Nizhnie and Srednie Kurchali and the Shirdy-Mokhk village who started pouring out of the district. They had to pay those who helped move their belongings; they had to shell out bribes at each of the numerous checkpoints that had appeared along their route. In all 240 families (800 people) from the Kurchali village moved down to the valley.
In the spring of 2002 the entire population of the villages of Enikali, Ialkhoi-Mokhk, Belty, Khidi-Kotar, Akhkinchu-Borzoi, Kerin-Benoi (Kurchaloi District) left their homes. The same happened in the villages of Davlety-Khutor and Tseteroi village (where only three families stayed behind) and the Gordali (twenty-two families remained), the villages of Shiani, Basa-Gordali, and Turti-Khutor of the Nozhai-Iurt District.
The migrants settled in the Gudermes District where their relatives had already been living for some time (they had been driven from their homes by landslides and, later, hostilities), in the city of Argun and the Shelkovskaia District. Since the local authorities refuse to register them, referring to supposed instructions from above they are frequently detained during passport checking operations. Local administrations supply IDPs with documents saying that they are migrants and staying temporarily in the given location. But registration is needed to receive pensions, dole, child allowances and humanitarian aid. And for this they have to spend much money to travel back to Nozhai-Iurt and Vedeno where they have to wait their turn for a long time. Sometimes this may take more than one day, yet people cannot stay in the mountains for the night—without registration they run a risk of detention during passport checks. Human rights activists repeatedly drew the attention of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development of the CR and the President of the CR to this issue. Nothing was done; nor is anything done to give people land to build homes or at least to register them.
According to the administration heads of the villages of Oiskhara, Noiber and Gordali (Gudermes District) there are correspondingly 1700, 600 and 350 people from the mountains living in their villages. They completely depend on the heads of local administrations in their places of residence. In the villages of Oiskhara and Noiber where the heads or their deputies themselves came from the mountains and experienced the same hardships of migrant life are doing their best to help the newcomers and ease the tensions. Here thanks to the persistence of such supervisors, people have been entered into the lists of the Administration of the Migration Service of the Chechen Republic. They have received documents according to form No. 7, and through this government service they have received bread since February 2003.
However, the bread supplies stopped a little over two months ago, with a very serious effect on the situation of migrants. The Federal Migration Service has no district offices; it is functioning through its Grozny administration. The mountain people do not receive humanitarian aid from the International Red Cross Committee while the Danish Refugee Council enrolled only a small part of them in its lists.
In some villages IDPS are treated completely differently: in the village of Ilaskhan-Iurt, for example, they were denied documents and were not allowed to build houses on the land of the relatives with whom they were huddling. Nothing could be done—the local administration is closely related to the top people in Grozny—the Kadyrovs came from Gudermes.
The officials in the mountains continue to receive their salaries even though the area is practically depopulated. Obviously, it is not in their interest to draw attention to the fact.
Few of the migrants came back—some ten families from the village of Kurchali (Vedeno District); several families went back to their homes in the village of Gansolchu (Nozhai-Iurt District) where even the school was reopened.
Since time immemorial people in the mountains raised cattle, tilled land and had large fruit orchards. In the valley cattle breeding proved impossible: fodder is expensive while those who rented their houses and rooms to newcomers did not expect to house cattle there as well. The unemployment level is high making it particularly hard to find a job. To support themselves and their families these people have to sell everything they have: their remaining valuables, their cattle. They survive thanks only to social support-- pensions, the dole and child allowances.
Many of the migrants have applied for compensation for lost dwellings and property, but there’s very little hope there. Compensation is promised mainly to those who come from the tent camps in Ingushetia. The official approach to compensation is not promising either—even if an owner cannot live in a half-ruined house in an abandoned village for reasons of security there is no hope of compensation. Unless a commission sees a completely ruined house no compensation is paid.

Lydia Yusupova, Memorial HRC

Appendix 5

The Detention and Murder of Eight People
from the Duba-Iurt Village (Shali District)

April 15, 2004

On March 27, 2004 at 2:00 a.m. representatives of an unidentified federal power structure detained eight local people in their homes in the Duba-Iurt village, Shali Distict:
1. Sharip Khamidovich Elmurzaev, born in 1971, Partizanskaia St., 10;
2. Idris Said-Khuseinovich Elmurzaev, 1974, Rodnikovaia St., 23;
3. Bay-Ali Abdulaevich Elmurzaev, 1968, Rodnikovaia St., 15;
4. Isa Imranovich Khadjimuradov, 1965, Sheripova St., 70;
5. Khusein Imranovich Khadjimuradov, 1975, Rodnikovaia St., 21;
6. Lechi Abuiazidovich Shaipov, 1960, Podgornaia St., 36;
7. Zelimkhan Umievich Osmaev, 1973, Beregovaia St., 10;
8. Apti Atsaevich Murtazov, 1964.

The siloviki (“power people”) came from the Chiri-Iurt village in five UAZ-452 (“tabletka”) vans; one Niva car, a Gazel van, one UAZ-469 car and two armored carriers. According to eyewitnesses checking operations and detention in the village were spontaneous and unsystematized. The detained were asked only for their first and last names; Lechi Shaipov alone was asked to present his passport. The “siloviki” were rude, in some instances they used force against the detainees and their relatives. There was at least one instance of theft; in the Shaipov house, they stole money and women’s gold rings. Besides the houses listed above they attacked several others, detained four more people (one of whom managed to flee; three others were thrown out of the car by the military at the village outskirts.)
The relatives of the detainees followed the soldiers and saw them cross the Chishki village; they drove further south, passed the Starye Atagi village and, without stopping, drove toward Grozny.

***
That same day, on March 27 the relatives went to the city of Shali to file applications with the prosecutor’s office and the district department of internal affairs—but their applications were rejected on the pretext that they were submitted on a day off (it was Saturday.)
On the next day, Sunday, March 28 people protested by blocking the road that ran across their village. The local administrators paid no attention to them.
On Monday, March 29, the local people, mainly women blocked the road once again and built a barricade. At noon several dozen military men drove up on two armored vehicles, tore up the barricade and dispersed the women. Several minutes later officials arrived (deputy head of the district administration and officials from the prosecutor’s office and the district department of internal affairs.)
The deputy head of the administration of the Shali District, named Khasanbek, informed the relatives that he knew where the abducted people were kept and assured the relatives that nothing bad would happen to them. He promised that after a check that would take two or three days they would all be let go. He told people to disband to avoid complications. The people believed him and went home.
On the third day, April 1, however, none of the detainees turned up. A week after the abduction, on April 2 Duba-Iurt residents blocked the Grozny-Shatoi highway at the Chiri-Iurt village. They demanded that their relatives and neighbors be freed immediately. Once more officials assured them that they knew where the detained were kept and promised that at least some of them would be back soon. It proved impossible to find out through official structures where the people were kept. Unofficially, however, the relatives obtained a document compiled by the procurator’s office for internal use about the results of checking the military base in Khankala (all eight of the people detained were kept there.) Employees of Human Rights Watch provided a copy of this document to journalists on April 8 at a press conference in Moscow. The relatives meanwhile were duped with promises that the detainees would be freed, not later than April 9 or 10, as soon as the investigation had been completed.

***
On the morning of April 9, 2004 a tractor driver on his way to the fields on the northern boundary of the Serzhen-Iurt village discovered nine dead bodies. The local people called the militia station with information that they had found a bomb. They were concerned that the militia might ignore information about dead bodies—this had already happened early in March 2004 when burials bodies were discovered outside Shali. Some time later the militia and people from the military commandant’s office arrived; local people also came, one of them tried to videotape the procedure but one of the soldiers took his camera away.
The bodies were brought to the Shali district department of internal affairs; eyewitnesses say that no postmortem was performed. Though everybody in the district department of internal affairs knew that on March 27 eight people had been abducted from the Duba-Iurt village and were missing, none of the officials deemed it necessary to go to the village to inform the relatives of the “missing” and offer that they come in for identification. It was a random local woman who informed the relatives who then went to the place on their own and identified the bodies as those of the abducted.
According to the relatives’ account, all of the abducted were killed with a shot in the head: each had a bullet hole in the back of the head. Moreover, all of the bodies had numerous traces of violence. For example the body of Shaipov, besides several bullet wounds had numerous bruises, the fingers were purple, the fingernails, black. In the place where his right eye should have been Bay-Ali Elmurzaev’s body had a deep wound. They had probably been killed shortly before the bodies were discovered—there were no obvious signs of decomposing, no smell from the corpses, the wounds were still bleeding. The ninth body remained unidentified that day and was left behind in the district department of internal affairs. Later it was identified as Khasan Sayd-Alvievich Abdulmezhidov born in the Duba-Iurt village; he lived in the Oktiabskiy District of Grozny. He had been taken from home in the early hours of April 2. On April 9 the dead were buried in Duba-Iurt—none of the officials attended the ceremony.

Eyewitness accounts of the detention in the Duba-Iurt village
Aiant Sataeva, mother of Sharip Elmurzaev:
“A white Gazel van came. They entered every room. They closed the door to our room. I wanted to get out but they beat me and pushed me back in. They never let me come into the room. They did not ask anything, they did not even take his passport. He was taken away barefooted.”
Luiza:
“They took eight people together with them; three more were thrown out of the car along the way. My cousin, who was over 50; my younger cousin, 26, the third, 25 years old was also our relative. Sharip is a taxi driver.
“On Saturday, early in the morning we went to Shali to file applications, yet neither the public prosecutor’s office nor the militia would accept them. They said that it was a day off. The administration head was indignant too but he was not with us on that day. In the evening, officials from the Shali district administration came to inform us, in an unofficial way,that they were kept in Khankala. They told us not to worry. When women built a barricade yesterday the military came in two armored vehicles and dispersed the women. They used force, pushing the women so hard, they fell. Then representatives of the Shali authorities came and stopped the military. The women talked to them and went home: they were promised that our relatives would be set free in a couple of days.”
Salambek, brother of Sharip Elmurzaev:
“They frightened his children and kicked his wife in the stomach. There was a trace on her nightgown. People from the procurator’s office took the nightgown away. She was in such a state that she could not even recall how it happened.”
Liza Hadjimuradova, mother of the brothers Hajimuradov:
“They took away my two sons. Not like people but like the worst of enemies! Yesterday I spoke to Khasanbek, deputy head of the Shali administration. He said: ‘I guarantee one hundred percent that your children are alive and well. They are working with them. I guarantee that in two or three days they will be free.’ There was another man, Losev, there. I think he was the deputy commandant. He also gave us his word. They never told us where our children were kept. There was another man, Magomed. He was either a deputy militia head or a militia head. Either way, he was a supervisor of some kind. He did not want us to stand there. Women had been standing there since Sunday. As for me, I was not with them, I have not been well since the surgery; I was there only yesterday. Yesterday they came in two armored carriers, destroyed our barricade and started pushing the women. One who was resisting too actively was beaten up. They all wore masks. Later I asked one of them:
--May I speak to you?
--Yes, why not?
--You know that your people take our children away from us. You don’t look after them, then why are you masked today, in broad daylight?
“Five minutes later a Shali delegation came—they set up two armored vehicles one closer and another a bit further away.
“The women started complaining about the military but soon realized that the Shali people acted together with them. The military just paved their way.
“My younger son never did a thing in the first or second war. He has been sick since childhood. The elder is already past the age. They were taken away like this before; they were beaten with iron rods for two days in Atagi, at the local poultry farm. On the 27th they were taken from home. Would a guilty person sleep at home with his children?
“The two-year old was sleeping next to my son. When he was arrested the child was frightened out of his mind. It was hard to calm him down. I was pushed over and fell under the bed. The person who did this must have had neither father nor mother.
“There were ‘tablet’ vans in our street, none had license plates. Our street is well lit; we all tried to find registration numbers but there were none. Losev told me: ‘Write to the prosecutor’s office.”
“What can I write: I know neither the van number nor the name? We wrote just the same but I have no faith in these applications.”

Idris Elmurzaev’s mother”
“They rushed into our house at 2 in the morning. Our gate was not locked. My husband and I were asleep. He has only one leg, I am a second-group invalid. I figured everything only when they had been taken out. They were swearing. Nobody even asked about their passports.
“He had been taken away several times. He had gotten a concussion, a broken jaw, his head was all swollen. This happened when 27 people were taken away and beaten with iron rods.
“Over the radio they called one another ‘02,’ ‘03.’ All had rifles.
“I asked one in Chechen:
--Who are you?
“He answered in Russian:
--Appeal to the regional department.
“They did not even allow me to switch on the light—he did this himself. My seventeen-year old son was sleeping on the sofa. He looked at him, then threw him to the floor. They he shouted: ‘Switch off the light’.”

Larisa, wife of Bay-Ali:
“They came at 2 in the morning. He had nothing on except his trunks. They did not give him time to dress. They beat him in the kidneys. They frightened the children with their submachine guns. They beat up mother. Her blood pressure went up. He had bad kidneys, he was taking medicine and had a high fever. He constantly had a fever. They did not take his passport, only asked his name. There was a ‘tablet’ car outside of ‘military color’.”

Luiza, wife of Isa Khadjimuradov
“They looked for one of the brothers who had managed to escape through the window. Then they wanted to take his younger brother away. They took him outside the yard, they called somebody over the phone, pushed him back into the yard and left. They went to others; there was also a not so young man. They said:
--Open the door! He thought that it was a joke and answered in Chechen:
--What do you want? He was taken out, put down on the concrete floor and beaten. Then he showed his passport and was let free.
“Then they gathered together, at the crossroads where the armored carriers were parked and drove away across Chishki. They came from Atagi.”

Zulpa, mother of Osmaev:
“They said nothing to us—they just wanted to know where he was. He was asleep in the room. They first asked the younger brother about his name then asked him where his second brother was. They never asked for documents. He had never been taken away earlier, there were no charges against him. My children were never involved in anything.”

Musa, Shaipov’s uncle:
“It was two in the morning. I was watching TV. He was sleeping on the floor. They came in very fast; I barely had time to open the door. They pressed two submachine guns against my stomach, hit me three times, and put me on the floor face down. They asked for my first name, last name and patronymic and said: ‘No, this is the wrong guy.’
“Then they said over the radio:
--Third, I am sixth. We’ve picked up everyone here.
“They did not give him time to put on clothes or shoes. They took away his passport. He works in the system of the Ministry of Agriculture and brings flour and grain from the Stavropol area. He had money about him, no less than eight thousand, maybe even thirty or forty thousand. He supplies petrol for all of us. They pushed his father, a blind man, off his bed. My wife screamed and I jumped. One of them put his foot on my head as said ‘I’ll shoot you right now like a dog.’
“They were aiming at her, but she continued screaming. They took away 900 rubles and two gold rings of my wife’s. They switched off the outdoor light and broke the lamp in the yard. They came in gray-colored ‘tablet’ vans without registration numbers. Three vans were spaced about 50 m from one another; further on there was a Niva car.
“People say that it had different license plates in front and in the back. There were eight vehicles in all: five ‘tablets,’ one Gazel van, a Niva, a UAZ and two armored carriers. They left via Chishki and Starye Atagi. People saw them there—they never stopped at the mill. Yesterday I brought people from the federal security service, military prosecutor’s office, the Shali department of internal affairs and civilian prosecutor’s office. They photographed everything and visited every house. They photographed everything, went into every yard; the investigator explained that they needed them in Khankala. There they would be shown people but under different names, not the real ones to see whether they would be recognized from the photos. The investigator’s name was Aleksandr.”

Eliza Musaeva, Memorial HRC

Appendix 6

The “Migration Rights” Network
A Memorial Human Rights Center Program

April 21, 2004

To: Attorney General of the RF, V.V. Ustinov

Dear Vladimir Vassilievich!

On March 18, 2004 people from the Russian power structures (probably the FSC) abducted Timur Rezvanovich Khambulatov, 1980, from his house in the Savelievskaia village, Naurskaia District of the Chechen republic.
Several UAZ vans and two armored carriers, all without state license plates, drove to the Khambulatov’s house on Kosmonavtov St. The military, dressed in camouflage fatigues who drove in them, kicked down the door and the windows, rushed inside and captured Timur. Then, having pushed all the family members into one of the rooms, they searched the premises with the help of a dog. The military showed Timur a foil-wrapped bottle-shaped object and asked whether it belonged to him. The young man denied any knowledge of it, yet the military took him away. His mother Aminat tried to find out where her son was taken and where he would be kept. The vague answers suggested that he would be taken to the district internal affairs department.
In the morning Aminat spoke to the precinct militiaman who admitted that three weeks before several military men from an unknown structure had been asking about the Khambulatovs’ address and then drove by mistake to their neighbors. The militiaman supposed that the military had information or had received a report about Timur’s participation in hostilities on the side of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. She answered that if that had been case, she would have long ago taken her son away, to a safe place. Aminat was not too worried: she hoped that those who had taken her son would sort things out and let him go on the same day.
On the next day, she, together with a neighbor, went to the district center, the Naurskaia village, to inquire about Timur. She lodged an application about the abduction of her son with the district prosecutor’s office; an investigator told her that her son’s dead body had been found on March 16 at 9:00 a.m. in one of the cells of the district internal affairs department and that his death was accidental. Having arrived at the office early in the morning the district prosecutor heard two militiamen discussing the death of a young man that had taken place in the same building (the two structures share one building.) The prosecutor went to the militia, inspected the cells and found a dead body on the floor. This was Timur Khambulatov. According to his relatives he had not even been registered.
According to information the relatives obtained from unofficial sources, Timur had been delivered to the district internal affairs department by FSC people. He was in a bad shape: his body bore traces of dog bites, bruises, wounds and burns (he was probably tortured with an electric chock device), his legs, arms, and skull were broken. The doctor was called but could do nothing: Timur Khambulatov died without regaining consciousness. The prosecutor ordered the body to be sent to Mozdok (Republic of North Ossetia-Alania) for post-mortem. On March 19 the family took his body from the morgue; the burial took place on the next day, March 20, in the village of Savelievskaia.
A criminal investigation was opened, but no progress has been reported yet. When talking to the mother of the dead young man, the head of the FSC Department for the Naurskaia District had to admit that his men had been involved in the detention and later handed Timur to another structure. According to Aminat he said that they had received a report about him. Then, having recognized that it was a mistake he apologized for this “misunderstanding.”
I ask you to take the case regarding Timur Khambulatov’s abduction and death under your personal control so that a careful and detailed investigation is conducted and all the necessary measures taken.
Respectfully yours,
Svetlana Gannushkina,
Member, the Memorial HRC Council; Member, Governmental Human Rights Commission Member,RF Presidential Human Rights Commission

Appendix 7

Bombardment of the Rigakhoi Village – Civilians are Killed
April 14 , 2004

Yesterday, on April 13, 2004 the Memorial HRC distributed the following preliminary information: “On April 9 at about 2:00 p.m. Moscow time a woman Marit Tsintsaeva and her five children, the eldest being 7 years old, died in an air raid in the Rigakhoi mountain village of the Vedeno District of Chechnya. When the raid started the woman gathered the children around her, but her house was hit by a bomb killing all inside.” This information was used by several information agencies, including Interfax, NEWSru.com, Polit.ru and others.
On the same day, the head of the Air Force press service Colonel Aleksandr Drobyshevskiy issued a statement in which he denied any involvement of the Air Force in the tragedy in the Rigahoi village: “On Friday no front bombers operated in this region of Russia” and “Information supplied by certain Russian and foreign media has nothing to do with reality.” (ITAR-TASS, April 13, 2004.)
Today, on April 14 employees of the Memorial HRC visited the place of the tragedy. According to detailed information, on April 8, between 14:00 and 14:30 a bomb strike was carried out at the village of Rigakhoi, Vedeno District situated high in the mountains (one of the bombs carried the number 350Ф 5-90.) The direct hit killed nearly the entire family of Imar-Ali Damaev: his wife Maidat Kudusovna Tsintsaeva, born in 1975; his children: Janasi, 1999; Zharadat, 2000; Umar-Hajji, 2002; Zara, 2003, Zura, 2003. The blast was strong enough to kill sheep and a horse that belonged to the same family but were kept outside.
The family head Imar-Ali (who had been away visiting the cemetery) survived by sheer accident. He saw the strike with his own eyes. Another survivor was his eldest son Umar, 7 years old, who was away at school in another village at the time of the blast. The local people say that on April 13, at about 10:00 a.m. officials from the military prosecutor’s office and the prosecutor’s office of the Vedeno District arrived by helicopters. After a superficial investigation that said that the house and its inhabitations had likely been destroyed and that there was no basis for opening up a criminal investigation. In the last ten years members of the Russian power structures have repeatedly denied any involvement in bombing and shelling Chechen villages and towns by saying that “the Chechens organized blasts themselves.” In this case the evidence speaks against such versions. We hope that the tragedy in the Rigakhoi village will be carefully investigated and those responsible for it punished.

Appendix 8

Attempts at judicial defense of IDPs removed from the rosters

In Russia it is the state power structures that are responsible for extending protection and humanitarian aid to internally displaced persons (IDP.) At a minimum, regardless of the circumstances, and without discrimination, competent authorities are obligated to provide internally displaced persons with and ensure safe access to essential food and potable water; basic shelter and housing; appropriate clothing; and essential medical services; and sanitation. These are the internationally recognized rules reflected in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (Principles 3 and 18.)
It is clear that the Russian authorities have never fulfilled and are not fulfilling these requirements. Here are several figures: on March 3, 2001 the Government of the RF passed decision No. 163 about the foodstuffs norms for IDPs living in Ingushetia: not more than 15 rubles (about $0.50) per person for those living in the tent camps and only bread in the amount of not more that 6 rubles (about $0.20) per person for those renting private housing. On top of this, this aid was limited to those entered into the corresponding lists, that is the people previously registered with the migration structures and passport departments (registration at a place of residence.) Not more than 20 rubles per person per day were allocated to those living in the tent camps and 14 rubles for those renting private housing. The figures were never readjusted. On the whole, in 2001, about 300 thousand IDPs in Ingushetia were supported on 500 million rubles, which was not enough to meet the most minimal government-established norms. That same year, the UN and IRC structures allocated about $70 million for humanitarian aid to the civilians who stayed behind in Chechnya, a figure about four times larger.
In 2003 and 2004 the migration structures of Ingushetia in the course of a campaign designed to organize the “voluntary return” of IDPs from Ingushetia to Chechnya randomly removed names from humanitarian aid lists to force people go back. It should be added that the Chechen children born in Ingushetia after 2001 were never even entered into the lists.
The office of the “Migration Rights” network in Nazran made defense of the right to governmental aid one of its aims. We used the mechanism of judicial defense, going to court to contest unlawful decisions of the migration structures or—in cases where a migration organ fails to address people’s demands to be restored to the lists—about unlawful administrative inaction. On the whole, the office employees compiled and sent to court 159 applications regarding cases concerning 950 people; positive decisions to put people on the lists were passed on 16 applications; 62 were slated to be discussed in the nearest future (as of the writing of this report.) Our experience, however, has shown that the courts vindicate the rights violated only if they fit the formal frameworks outlined by determination No. 163 mentioned above. The courts decline the applications for enrollment in the lists of those who left the Chechen Republic after the officially announced end of the antiterrorist operation (April 2001) when the migration structures stopped registering IDPs.

Margarita Petrosian, Memorial HRC

Appendix 9

Internally Displaced Persons from the Chechen Republic
Who Find Themselves in the Tent Camps of the Republic of Ingushetia and in Temporary Placement Points upon their Return to Chechnya

Report of the RF Presidential Commission on Human Rights on its trip to the Republic of Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic
January 28-29, 2004

The Human Rights Commission under the President of the Russian Federation has been monitoring the situation in tent camps in Ingushetia and in the temporary placement point since December 2002. In the last year, its members visited camps and temporary placement points many times. Besides, the developments in the region have been closely followed by NGOs. The information they supply is widely used in the work of the Commission. The authorities of the Chechen Republic have been trying to return IDPs from the Republic of Ingushetia to the Chechen Republic since 2000. This issue became particularly acute in late 2002 when attempts were made to force IDPs to return to the Chechen Republic without offering them realistic housing options. Thus, the Iman camp in Aki-Iurt was liquidated in November 2002. Forced resettlement was then stopped through efforts of the general public.
In the fall of 2003 the Bella and Alina camps were closed down. All those who wanted to stay behind, however, were moved to the Satsita camp, while those who chose to return were promised compensation on a priority basis under Decision No. 404 of the RF Government of July 4, 2003.
The Commission’s main mission is to prevent the forced relocation of IDPs to Chechnya and to help create adequate living conditions for them both prior to and after their relocation back to Chechnya.
On January 28-29, 2004 the Commission Chairperson E.A. Pamfilova and Commission members S.A. Gannushkina and M.A. Leskov once again traveled to the region another time and visted:
the three remaining large camps in Ingushetia--Satsita and Sputnik in the village of Sleptsovskaya and Bart in Karabulak,
as well as a small camp on the territory of the motor-repair organization (MRO) Rassvet
and the temporary placement point on Kol’tsov street (Mayakovsky settlement of the Staropromyslovsky Ditsrict in Grozny).
The Commission members spoke to several representatives of the migration agencies and the administrations of both the Republic of Ingushetia and the Chechen Republic about the prospects of IDPs’ return to Chechnya.
According to the migration agencies of the Republic of Ingushetia, as of today about 3.8 thousand out of the total number of 48.5 thousand of IDPs living in Ingushetia remain in tent camps in Ingushetia. 30 thousand IDPs were settled in 20 temporary placement points upon their return to Chechnya; there are only 75 vacant rooms left. Apart from this, in the Oktiabrsky District of Grozny there are 120 so-called “flood houses” (temporary constructions intended for use in places where a flood occured) that are almost ready; they will accommodate about 800 people.
According to the estimates of NGO experts, the number of IDPs from the Chechen Republic now living in Ingushetia is about 1.5 times larger than the official number; this is confirmed by complaints from those IDPs about being struck from the lists of camp inhabitants.
Thus it is clear that all IDPs cannot return to Chechnya even if their security is ensured, which is also a purely hypothetical scenario at this point.
It is impossible to house all tent camp inhabitants in Ingushetia since, according to the migration agencies of the Republic, there are only 25 rooms in compact settlements, while the heads of the migration administration of the Republic of Ingushetia pronounced 180 small houses built a year ago by the French section of Medicins Sans Frontiers unsuitable for habitation for no apparent reason.
To speed up the process of return, migration agencies and the administration of the Chechen Republic accept documents for compensation right at the camps. Yet the compiling of lists of ruined housing that cannot be restored, for which compensation should be paid under Decision No. 404 of the Government of the RF of July 4, 2003, is moving along very slowly. By the beginning of 2004 the lists comprised 37 thousand dwellings, while some of the settlements (Komsomolskoe, Bamut) had been razed to the ground, which makes inspections of such places a mere formality. By January 2004 compensations had been paid to about 1.5 thousand people; those who received compensations had to leave the temporary placement points and look after themselves while rebuilding their houses from scratch. At the same time, not everybody will be awarded the compensation, since part of the housing supply can still be reconstructed.
Not all inhabitants of the Satsita, Sputnik and Bart camps confirmed their readiness to return to the Chechen Republic to the Commission members, mainly because the safety problem remains unresolved. People are gradually losing their trust in the Chechen authorities who promise them compensation upon their arrival to the republic. They are afraid to find themselves in Chechnya without money and housing. To protect themselves from this in some way, when applying to be placed onto lists of those wishing to return to the Chechen Republic, they add the text “only after I receive documents that entitle me to receive compensation for ruined housing.”
At the same time, people know that many of them will not be entered into the lists since their houses are not considered completely ruined. Besides, they all understand that receiving such confirmation does not mean compensation will be paid immediately upon their return.
Nobody knows how people will support themselves while their houses are being rebuilt.
It is also doubtful that new housing can be obtained with the compensation money: the sum is too small to build a new house, while there is no pool of apartments for sale in the Republic.
The IDPs are convinced that 30 to 50 percent of their compensations will be spent on bribes - this and the fear that they can be robbed or killed as soon as they get the money are two factors that influence their decisions.
It should be added that there are accounts that bureaucrats not only ask to return half of the total compensation sum in bribes, they also ask 5 thousand rubles for a unit of lost housing to be placed onto the compensation lists.
Some of the camp inhabitants do not want to go back under any condition: one of the women living in the Satsita camp said that her family would never go back even though their house had survived. Her elder son was killed in 1999; all efforts to find his body and punish his killers led, as she was convinced, to the abduction of her second son. She paid a huge ransom to get him back, and her son requires continued medical treatment to this day.
A very serious problem remains the fact that people are struck from the lists of IDPs at random. This happens to those who happen to be absent from the camps when a verification occurs (even though they do live there). The promise to restore to the lists the names of those who moved from Bella and Alina to the Satsita camp (and had been removed from the lists) remains unfulfilled. There are many complaints of this kind in the Sputnik camp: the wife of one of the residents (the Dadashev family, tent 27, block 5) who was away doing shopping was struck from the lists; in another case a 7-year-old girl playing with friends in the adjacent tent was counted as absent (her name is Seda Chavrigova.) Some families lost their registration at the camps completely or partially a year ago (the families of Rakhmaevs, Chachaevs, Tsamaevs, Mabazovs, Galaevs, Dadaevs, Tepsukaevs, Uzuevs.) And these are only those people with whom Commission members had a chance to speak in person.
It is the migration agencies of the Republic of Ingushetia that are responsible for removing people from the lists; they are guided by the results of the checks conducted by the Committee for Refugees and Forced Migrants of the Chechen Republic, which sends its information directly to Moscow. Thus 1900 people altogether were removed from the lists. About 1700 names were re-entered on the representations of I.B. Iunash, Deputy Head of the Federal Migration Service of the RF Ministry of the Interior made during his inspection trip, however another 250 persons didn’t make it back onto the lists.
Here is a typical story: between 1999 and 2001 Malika Isaeva lived in the Bart camp together with her husband and four children. Her fifth pregnancy proved to be a difficult one; she was taken to a hospital in Vladikavkaz. Her family followed her and was absent from the camp for a short time. Upon return they discovered that their tent had already been taken down. Today, the family of seven is living in Sputnik camp tent, together with friends who agreed to take them in. They had not been entered into any of the lists for three years now.
One should point out that for some strange reason the children born in the camps are not entered into the IDP lists: it seems that they are treated analogously to the principle that the FMS applies to forced migrants, whose children are denied the status if born 10 months or more after migration. However it is still unclear why the migration agencies that represent the state refuse to take on responsibility for these minor Russian citizens.

Our visit to the garages in the Oskanov St. and in MRO Rassvet in the Republic of Ingushetia showed that the houses built by the French section of Medicins Sans Frontiers in the village of Sleptsovskaia remain vacant. Some of them are placed inside the garage itself. As a result, they are dark and the air inside them is hardly breathable. Still, the situation can be improved if the brick walls are lowered to the level of windows. The second section of houses is built on platforms complete with gas and electricity; the houses in MRO Rassvet are placed even better - there is no reason for them to remain vacant. At the same time, people in Rassvet continue to live in tents that are no longer suitable for habitation; from time to time security lets people to go “for an excursion” to take a look at the houses. Even those who managed to obtain such houses to replace their tents are denied permission to build them by the owner of the MRO Rassvet. Because of arrears in rent the owner want IDPs to vacate the territory altogether; meanwhile, the migration agencies encourage the IDPs to look for new housing on their own.
Out of all the places where the newly-returned IDPs were housed in the Chechen Republic, the Commission members managed to visit only the temporary placement point on Krylov St. The building is much better suited for human habitation than the tents, yet the problems are as numerous. The building has neither water supply nor plumbing; there is no dedicated space for washing and laundry. Medical help is limited to one room that lacks even the most primitive supplies. The children have no school to attend, though their number of 400 is sufficient to fill a small local school; there are teachers prepared to work in such a school, despite the fact that teachers in the republic in general were not paid wages in the last two months. Help with medications was organized on the spot: the NGO Women’s Dignity (chairperson Lipkahn Bazaeva) took this upon itself, giving several boxes of medications to the temporary placement point.
The Commission members inspected the so-called flood houses that had been readied for settlement. Their design presupposed central heating and plumbing. So far, neither is provided; instead, toilets are built outside, while heating remains an unresolved problem.
To be sure, there are certain positive developments in the Chechen Republic: debris was removed from the central streets of Grozny; buildings are being restored; the telephone network is being expanded. The authorities promised that people would be able to use mobile phones. At the same time, there is no guarantee of safety; parents are constantly afraid each time their children, especially young men, walk out the door. Unemployment is high while jobs are scarce. It is hard or even impossible to restore the documents confirming one’s rights to property or to housing; documents are often contradictory. During the war people were settled in abandoned apartments – today, real or fictitious owners claim them. The judicial system is inefficient.
The above suggests that it is premature to invite the IDPs back to the Chechen Republic: this attempt has no real economic, social and legal basis.
A huge source of concern is the growing confrontation between the authorities of the Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia, first and foremost as concerns the problem of IDP return. It is clear that RF laws do not allow Ingush authorities to adopt a policy of forcing IDps out. The activities of the Republic of Ingushetia leadership in accepting Chechen residents beginning in 1999 with the opening of the checkpoint “Kavkaz-1” and continuing to this day are clearly being derided by the current Chechen Republic leadership. Ingushetia was the only subject of the RF that opened its doors to Chechens, saving hundreds of thousands of lives. The Ingush people endured periods of double settlement on their territory, notwithstanding the simultaneous presence of IDPs from the suburban area of Northern Ossetia. Against this backdrop, some inadequacies in the work of Ingushetia’s administrative organs do not change the overall picture. The federal authorities must make every effort to resolve the conflict at its inception and avoid any possibility of confrontation.

Recommendations.
1. Stop provoking IDP anxiety by fixing exact dates for the IDPs’ final return to the Chechen Republic. Instead, housing should be gradually prepared for those who want to return at their own volition.
2. The IDPs should be given a chance to settle in other subjects of the Russian Federation; they should receive relevant information about potential places of residence. The governors should be asked to submit, in the shortest time possible, information about available housing and jobs.
3. Heads of the federal subjects should be asked to help restore schools, hospitals and libraries in the Chechen Republic and supply them with everything needed.
4. Payment of compensations under Decision No. 404 of the RF Government of July 4, 2003 should be sped up by means of compiling lists of settlements where housing had been completely razed to the ground during the hostilities.
5. Measures should be taken to ensure rigorous investigation into all cases of illegal detainment and abduction of Chechen Republic inhabitants by all federal and republican agencies. Relatives of the detainees should receive information about the detainees and the reasons for detention.

Members of the Human Rights Commission under the President of the Russian Federation,
E.A. Pamfilova
S.A. Gannushkina
M.A. Leskov
February 9, 2004

Appendix 10

Escalating Violence in Ingushetia

March 2004

In March 2004, in the Republic of Ingushetia, all sorts of power structures stepped up their “passport checking activities” and the efforts to neutralize armed units of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. The Memorial HRC registered six cases of abduction and 11 murders. Three people were wounded, two detained, beaten up, tortured, then set free. In the forced migrants’ camp, “siloviki” (power people) followed the classical scenario of a cleansing operation. In March there appeared a new variant: Russian power structures take hostages among the relatives of those fighting on the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria side. (First this method was applied to Kh.-A. Visaitov, some time later it was used to convince M. Khambiev to surrender.)
Naturally enough, although there were fighters among those who were either killed or abducted, the majority of the victims were peaceful civilians.

March 2, 2004
At about 04:00 p.m. servicemen of an unknown Russian power structure carried out a special operation in the Altievo camp (Ingushetia) that cost one person his life; at least two civilians were wounded. According to unconfirmed reports a schoolgirl Tsoloeva was killed by random gunfire.
According to eyewitnesses “siloviki” (approximately 10 of them) in masks came in two cars: UAZ-452 and silver-colored Zhiguly 21009 (all of them with toned windows) and blocked the tunnel exit. Obviously, they had been chasing a white Zhiguli 21006 and had come from the direction of the Kommunalnaia bus stop. The “siloviki” started firing at the white Zhiguli and killed the driver. Numerous civilians, children included who were going home from the nearby school, were caught in the range of fire. The military were swearing at the passers-by, shouting something to the effect of: “You are all sheltering bandits and organized a base for bandits here.” The driver of a dark blue Zhiguli car that was going by was caught in the fire and received a light wound; his passenger a girl named Khazbieva, born in 1979, was gravely wounded in the neck.
There are people who say that the “siloviki” put a hand grenade into the hands of the killed driver.
The eyewitnesses tried to help the wounded and to stop the unlawful actions, yet the military were very aggressive: soldiers tried to detain the man who rushed in their direction when he saw the bleeding girl. They beat him up with submachine gun butts and tried to force him into their car. The people, however, succeeded in rescuing him.

March 3, 2004
After 06:00 a.m. people from unidentified Russian power structures detained and took in an unknown direction a forced migrant from Chechnya, Khoj-Akhmed Shaikhievich Visaitov, b. 1985, who lived temporarily in the village of Psedakh, Malgobek District, Pochtovaia St., 37 (Republic of Ingushetia.)
About 60 people, some of whom wore masks, came to his house in a white bus, several UAZ and Niva cars. Having burst into the house they demanded that Luiza Gulueva, 1964, who lived in it tell them where her husband, Shaikhi Visaitov, was hiding. One of the military put his submachine gun to the head of her daughter Zharadat, 1988, and threatened to kill her if she gave no answer. She said that the head of the family had left for Nazran two days before and was not home yet.
After that the military entered neighboring house No. 21 on the same street, captured and interrogated Khoj-Akhmed, son of Shaikhi-Magomed and Luiza who had spent the night in the house of his relative Said-Magomed Visaitov.
Having gotten no answer, the “siloviki” said: “If you do not know where father is we are going to arrest the son.” His mother tried to persuade them to leave her son alone; having failed she tried to find out where her son would be taken. The military continued ignoring her. Her son was beaten up, put into one of the waiting cars and taken in an unknown direction.
The local militia tried to interfere, yet they were never allowed to approach: the siloviki fired into the air several times and threatened to open fire if the local militiamen tried to get closer.
Eyewitnesses believe that the group consisted of members of the Russian power structures as well as of President Kadyrov’s security service.
The Visaitovs came from the village of Makhkety, Vedeno District, Chechen Republic; since 2001 they have been living in the Psedakh village as refugees. There are six of them: Liza Saypudinovna Gulueva, Khoj-Akhmed who is 18 and four girls (Djaradet born in 1988; Aidat, 1990; Rukeiat, 1998, and Iman, 2000.) Shaikhi-Magomed Visaitov had left his family for another one three years before and rarely saw his children. There is information that during both the first and second wars he maintained close contacts with the fighters.
On the third day after her son’s detention Liza Gulueva was informed that her son was kept in their native village of Makhkety in a rifle platoon location. One of the local people Ibragim Khultygov (he had headed the National Security Service of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under Maskhadov) was the platoon commander. This unit was set up in 2003 to guard some of the villages of the Vedeno District and is part of the Kadyrov security service headed by Akhmad Kadyrov’s son Ramzan.
L. Gulueva was informed that Khultygov had allowed her mother, Lida Gulueva, and Abubakar Visaitov, father of her former husband, to talk to Khoj-Akhmed and said that the boy would be set free only if his father, the one they were looking for, surrendered himself.

March 4, 2004
At about 07:35 a.m. people from an unidentified power structure tried to detain a group of people in a house on the Enginoev St. at the outskirts of the village of Psedakh (Ingushetia.) They were met with armed resistance.
Fighting went on for about an hour; as a result all five people who were in the house were killed. Two of them were local people (Khamzat Enginoev, 1978, and Anzor Kukiev, 1973); three came from other places: Muslim Djaniev, 1976 from the village Eli-Iurt, Nadterechny District of the CR; Aslanbek (Aslan) Khamidov, 1978, from Grozny, and Djamali, his family name remained unknown, probably from the Znamenskaia village, Nadterechny District of the Chechen Republic.
According to official information this special operation was conducted by the people of the Department of the FSC of the RF for the Republic of Ingushetia together with mobile units of the RF Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Republic of Ingushetia Ministry of Internal Affairs. The dead were fighters; one of the officers of the special services was wounded. The house contained huge amounts of weapons; according to official sources a local civilian, Akhmed Kortoev, b. 1969 was wounded in the head.

March 5, 2004
At 07:20 a.m. people from unidentified Russian power structures conducted a special operation in the village of Stary Malgobek (Ingushetia).
The siloviki blocked the Zapadnaia St. and encircled house No. 102/2 inhabited by Isa Torshkhoev, 26 years old. Nobody, including the schoolchildren who had to go to school, was allowed to leave the blocked zone. The people in the Torshkhoev house fought off attempts to penetrate the house. As a result of the encounter that lasted for two hours, according to certain sources, five people who were inside the house were killed; two escaped, including Torshkhoev, the owner of the house. One of the officers was wounded.
After the encounter the siloviki detained two young men who lived nearby: Sultan Gariev, b. 1988, a student in tenth grade, and Adam Poshev, 20 years old. Both were severely beaten and then let to go; they were taken to a hospital in the town of Malgobek with numerous bruises and head injuries.
According to local people six Chechens between 16 and 22 years old had come to Stary Malgobek from the village of Psedakh; Isa Torshkhoev took them into his house.
It should be added that on March 4 a special operation designed to detain fighters was carried out in Psedakh.

March 6, 2004
Early in the morning siloviki from unidentified Russian power structures carried out a mopping up operation in the Satsita camp for forced migrants (Ordjonikidzevskaia village, Ingushetia.)
People were still sleeping when four armored carriers, 12 or 13 UAZ vans and several cars drove into the camp. Eyewitnesses said that the armored carries and the UAZ vans brought Russian military mainly without masks; people from power structures came in the cars; they spoke Chechen among themselves and wore masks.
The siloviki went from one tent to another with unsanctioned searches; they were rude and insulted people. They never mentioned their names and never explained why they had come in the first place. They started with the tents in the row 0, the closest one to the camp administration. Some tents were searched only perfunctorily; others (tent No. 7) were searched carefully, even the floorboards were raised. The Chechen siloviki remained passive.
The indignant forced migrants asked one of the military (a colonel) for an explanation. He answered vaguely that it was a passport checking operation. People asked him: “Why are you searching tents then?” It was another military who said: “You should have paid with three villages for what you did in the Moscow underground.”
By 09:00 a.m. the operation was completed; the siloviki detained three young men whom they wanted to take away. The forced migrants, mainly women, blocked the exit route and demanded that the young men be set free. After half an hour of talks, the military freed the young men and promised to be back some time later.
In the town of Karabulak, Ingushetia, people from Russian power structures abducted a forced migrant from Chechnya, Soslanbek Daudovich Ulbiev, born in 1973.
According to his relatives, between 04:00 and 05:00 p.m. five or six vans brought 35 to 40 armed people in camouflage fatigues (some of them in masks) to their house (Bachalov St., No. 47.) Having entered they forced Soslanbek and his wife Fatima to lie down on the floor. Without presenting any documents they carefully searched the rooms for an hour. Having finished they took Soslanbek together with them. His wife wanted to know why and where they were taking her husband. The military answered that his passport raised certain doubts and advised her to inquire about him in the Karabulak department of internal affairs.
In the town militia Soslanbek’s parents who had started for the town an hour later were told that Ulbiev was not kept in the department and that they knew nothing about his detention. The relatives complained to the town militia; on the same day they visited or phoned every law-enforcement body in the republic, the FSC included, and learned nothing.
On March 11 the Ulbievs complained to the republic’s public prosecutor, the minister of the interior and deputy head of the FSC Administration for the Republic of Ingushetia as well as the Memorial office in Nazran.
Nobody knows why Ulbiev was abducted; the relatives say that they left Chechnya in October 1999, when hostilities started, and have been living in Ingushetia since that time. Soslanbek was not involved in any illegal activities.

March 11, 2004
In the daytime, several armed people in camouflage fatigues and masks driving around in Niva cars and Gazel vans abducted three local people at a traffic police post on the road leading from Nazran to the village of Kantyshevo and Mayskiy and the town of Malgobek, Republic of Ingushetia.
According to traffic policemen who saw everything with their own eyes, not far from their post the military fired at a Zhiguli 21007 white car that was driving ahead of them. Then having presented themselves as officers of the special service they pulled three men (one of them wounded) out of the car; forced them into the van and drove away toward Vladikavkaz.
Later the names of the abducted became known: Tamerlan Savarbekovich Tsechoev, 1962; Rashid Borisovich Ozdoev, assistant of the Republic of Ingushetia public prosecutor responsible for control of the power structures, and Evloev who worked in the Republic of Ingushetia Ministry of the Interior.
Their relatives applied to the republican law-enforcement bodies and tried to investigate the abduction themselves. They learned from unofficial sources that the wounded, Evloev, was kept under guard in a hospital either in Vladikavkaz or Stavropol. No traces of Tsechoev and Ozdoev have been found so far.
Nobody knows why they were abducted though it is common knowledge that recently Ozdoev has demanded, in both written and oral form, that the FSC of Ingushetia discontinue its unlawful operations and protested, within his competence, against such actions. He was probably abducted because of these activities.
On March 20 the relatives sent telegrams to the Administration of the RF President, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the administration of the Republic of Ingushetia president in which they asked for help.
According to another version, assistant prosecutor of the Republic of Ingushetia, Rashid Ozdoev was detained by officers of the RF FSC for Ingushetia when he was about to drive away in his car from the parking at the government offices in Magas. Several people saw his car, VAZ-21099 parked in front of the FSC office. Journalists for an Ingush Internet site say that head of the FSC for Ingushetia Koriakov was displeased with Ozdoev’s activities.
On March 15 his father Boris Ozdoev finally managed to convince the prosecutor’s office to institute a criminal case (Art 126 of the RF Criminal Code “Abduction.”)

March 16, 2004
About 05:00 p.m. unidentified people in black masks and camouflage fatigues abducted Timur Magomedovich Iandiev, 1979, who lived in Karabulak, as he was leaving the building of Ingushenergo in Nazran. The guards of Ingushenergo saw the abduction with their own eyes.
The abductors came in a Niva car and a Gazel van, both without state registration plates and with toned-glass windows.
Timul Iandiev was pushed into one of the cars and driven away in an unknown direction. According to the eyewitnesses everything happened so quickly that nobody could grasp the meaning of what they saw: obviously the abductors were trained professionals.
His relatives know after Timur was taken, the cars drove to Chechnya and passed Kavkaz-1 checkpoint.
Nobody knows why he was abducted; he is married and has a baby daughter. In 1996 he graduated from the Nazran Humanitarian and Technological College where he specialized in computers; he is a correspondence student of the State University of Ingushetia.
Between 1997 and 1999 he was employed by the Ingush customs office of the RF State Customs Committee and worked at the department engaged in controlling deliveries; in 1999 he was laid off. Between 2001 and 2003 he was employed by Ingushenergo, then was once again laid off.
Since October 2003 he has been employed as a systems administrator of Information Telecommunication Technologies. All those who knew him had only favorable things to say about him.

March 19, 2004
Not far from the village of Ekazhevo, Ingushetia, 150 relatives of those abducted throughout the republic gathered together to attempt a meeting of protest.
They wanted the authorities to find out who and why had abducted their relatives and where they were kept.
Deputy Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Ingushetia, Z. Kotiev came to ask people to disperse because their actions were illegal and could not help them find their relatives. He suggested that the meeting should select a group of several people to go with him to the ministry to present their complaints and demands.
At that moment First Deputy Minister of the Interior A. Kostoev came and rudely ordered the rally to disband. He used unsuitable language even when talking to old men. The people of Ingushetia were indignant at such treatment from the First Deputy: from him they expected more attention to their troubles and more help in finding their loved ones.
Some time later the meeting ended, and several of its participants followed Z. Kotiev to the ministry.
In the last two week, in Ingushetia, at least two civilians died and two more people were wounded because of unprofessional actions of employees of unidentified power structures. The abduction of Timur Iandiev, b. 1979, was the last drop. So far, the official structures have not responded to the events, while the republican power structures have done nothing to identify those guilty of these violations or punish them.

Eliza Musaeva, Memorial HRC

Appendix 11

Violence in Ingushetia
June 2003

The Republic of Ingushetia has escaped war; the largest and nearly the only encounter between the federal forces and armed units of Ichkeria took place in the fall of 2002 when Gelaev’s unit was moving from the Pankisi Gorge (Georgia) to Chechnia via Ingushetia.
In the past special operations have been conducted in Ingushetia but neither scope nor the violations of human rights that accompanied them could compare with what the Chechen Republic lived through.
Early in summer 2003, the situation changed considerably.
That year, the summer began with cleansing operations like those in Chechnya; moreover, they were not limited to the densely populated forced migrant camps but extended to Ingush villages.
The Memorial HRC has no doubts that the Russian power structures have the right to carry out operations to detain fighters if they have information about fighters being present in Ingushetia. But as happened earlier in Chechnya and is happening today in Ingushetia these operations are carried out in such a manner as to violate the laws of the Russian Federation and cause serious violations of human rights.
According to Memorial information, during the first 22 days of June 2003, 9 persons were abducted during special operations; 11 were detained, 1 peaceful civilian killed; two others wounded. Civilians were shelled, their houses plundered by those who carried out these operations in the villages. In this way the “counter-terrorist” operation has been extended to Ingushetia.

1. Special operations against forced migrants
On June 3, 2003 at about 04:00 a.m. federal forces surrounded a settlement of forced Chechen migrants situated on the territory of the Joint-Stock URS Company (western fringes of Nazran), which is home to 85 families (over 600 people.) The following military equipment and cars were used: six armored carriers with state registration plates covered with mud; two Ural military lorries adjusted to carry the detainees without registration plates; two Gazel vans (registration numbers 293 CE/95 and 195 СИ/95) and a white Volga car (GAZ-3110) without a registration plate.
It was mainly officers of the Russian power structures who carried out the mopping-up operation though officers of the Chechen and Ingush power structures could have been there too: forced migrants said that some of the military spoke Chechen and Ingush among themselves.
The operation lasted for about an hour; the siloviki armed with submachine guns and dressed in camouflage fatigues and masks burst into rooms, without identifying themselves or explaining the purpose of their visit. All men 14 and older were forced out of the building with kicks and blows from submachine gun butts and were ordered to lie face down on the ground while keeping their arms behind their heads. Then all of them were made to stand on their knees and photographed full face and profile with digital cameras; their passports were also photographed. One by one they were taken to the other side of the street, put face down on the ground, their passports put into their hands.
At the same time, unauthorized searches were being conducted on the living premises; there were cases of theft. For example, 7 or 8 boxes of humanitarian aid were taken away from the room of Ruslan Arsaev, the camp’s head. They had been delivered a day earlier by the Ministry of the Emergencies. The siloviki were rude: they pushed women who tried to find out what was going on and insulted them. The local school was also raided and subjected to a pogrom.
The siloviki detained four forced migrants: Ruslan Almanovich Arsaev, 1969, the camp’s head; Khaseyn Imievich Movlaev, 1970; Umar Shadievich Muzaev, 1967; and Khavanji Iakhevich Tashukhadjiev, 1972. They were forced into the cars and driven away. All of them came from the Tsitsin-Iurt village, Kurchaloi District of the Chechen Republic.
Having completed the mopping-up operation the military departed for Chechnya along the Rostov-Baku highway.
On the same day, June 3, the siloviki carried out a checking operation on the territory adjacent to the camp of forced migrants from Chechnya. They took three men—a father and his two sons, 14 and 15 years old—from a house inhabited by the Tsurov family, forced Ingush migrants from the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia. They were taken out of the house, brought to the camp where the mopping-up operation was going on and forced to the ground together with the others. Later they were allowed to go home.
On the next day one of the detainees, Khaseyn Imievich Movlaev came back. He said that the officers of the unidentified power structure had brought them to a place he could not recognize where they were tortured with electric shocks and interrogated during the course of the day, their torturers trying to elicit confessions that they had assisted the fighters.
On June 4 Khaseyn Movlaev, Umar Muzaev and Khavazhi Tashukhajiev were put into a car with dark sacks on their heads and driven away in an unknown direction. Twenty minutes later the car stopped; the detainees were thrown out and warned not to remove the sacks for 10 minutes. Nothing was known about the location of Ruslan Aldamovich Arsaev, head of the URS Joint Stock Company camp, who had been detained together with them.
He was freed on June 17-18. He said that he had been kept in a shed, probably near Khankala. The abductors treated him decently, did not beat him and regulatory gave him food.
On June 3, 2003 at about 01:00 p.m. over 20 armed people in masks arrived in four cars (two Niva cars, one UAZ and one Volga car) to the forced migrants’ camp on the territory of the former farm in the village of Nesterovskaia, Sunzha District, Ingushetia. The camp is home to over 1000 forced migrants from the Chechen Republic.
Without giving any explanations, the armed people drove into the camp and started firing into the air. The crowd panicked and dispersed, but a few of them, mainly elderly people, approached the strangers and tried to find out why they had come. Two of them were beaten with butts and kicked.
The strangers dispersed over the camp’s territory and started seizing all men, shouting: “You animals are sitting here, in Ingushetia and do not want to go back home. Do you think that we won’t reach you here?”
Nonetheless, having recovered from shock the camp people resisted the attackers; the crowd of unarmed people managed to free the majority of those detained.
At that moment, Rustam Lichaev, one of the camp inhabitants, drove up to the camp in his car. The strangers opened fire on him; Rustam climbed out of the car with documents in his upraised hands. He and Adam Tambiev, another detained young man, were put into one the cars. At about 04:00 p.m. the strangers left the camp, taking Lichaev’s car as well.
Having left the camp the strangers stopped a Zhiguli car (VAZ-21099) driven by a traffic police officer from Ingushetia and tried to throw the driver out. When he used firearms; the strangers gave up on their plan and drove away toward Chechnya. At a checkpoint the column was stopped by the Ingush militia. After a prolonged opposition that verged on an exchange of gunfire the column was allowed to pass into Chechnya.
According to the Ingush militiamen, there were officers from Akhmad Kadyrov’s power structure headed by his son Ramzan among the strangers.
R. Lechaev was set free on June 18-19, Tambiev, on 21 June with the help of their relatives who had probably paid ransom for him. According to the detained they were kept outside Gudermes and guarded by power structures of the Chechen Republic.
On June 7, 2003, at about 05:00 a.m. armed officers of unidentified Chechen Republic power structures attacked a milk farm at the Nasyr-Kort village outside Nazran inhabited by forced migrants from Chechnya. The armed siloviki in masks arrived in three UAZ cars and one PAZ bus, all without state registration plates.
According to the camp residents, after surrounding the first building, some of the strangers went inside to carry out a verification. The camp was blocked—nobody could leave its territory.
Abubakar Ustarkhanov, b. 1975, a forced migrant from the village of Tsotsin-Iurt, Kurchaloi District, Chechen Republic, was detained and taken away in an unknown direction. Then the strangers left the camp.
A. Ustarkhanov is the father of four (the youngest is a just a baby.) Together with his family he was registered at his the place of temporary residence. According to fellow-villagers, he was well known in this village and no one had every suspected him of doing anything illegal.
He was set free on the next day in Gudermes, Chechen Republic. He said that he had been taken to Grozny and interrogated about Bakaev, his fellow villager and a man wanted by the federal structures.
Ustarkhanov was forced to sign a document that said that he was a fighter who came to surrender voluntarily; he was told that he had to buy a submachine gun to “voluntarily” turn it in within a month. He has no money to spend on arms and does not even know where arms can be bought.
On June 7, 2003 at about 05:00 a.m. 20 armed people in camouflage fatigues and masks having broken down the door burst into a flat in Nazran (Sovetskaia St., 51.) They detained Buyvasar Vakhitovich Khadisov, b. 1976, a forced migrant from the Chechen Republic, put handcuffs on him and took him away in an unknown direction. The abductors came in four UAZ khaki-colored cars.
The strangers pushed his wife who was holding their five-month old baby with such force that she fell down; the baby received a trauma to the head when he hit it against the bed.
On June 10 Khadisov was freed in Chechnya.
On June 12, 2003, in the evening 9 people from a forced migrants’ camp were detained in the Tanzila cafй practically in the center of Nazran.
At about 07:15 p.m. people in masks and camouflage fatigues drove up to the camp gate. They spoke Russian and Chechen. According to the official version, they were pursuing cars that stopped at the camp gates across the road (white Zhiguli-7 and Zhiguli-9 cars and a black Jeep.) This special operation was probably a continuation of the operation in the village of Ekazhevo, Nazran District, Republic of Ingushetia, where during an exchange of gunfire with the militia two unknown people had been killed and one policeman wounded.
The siloviki pulled the drivers out from the cars and then started detaining everybody standing in front of the gates of the Tazila cafй. They forced all of them on the ground on their faces and started to beat them mercilessly.
As a result of this so-called “mopping-up” operation, 9 people were detained.
Two forced migrants were taken to the cars (that had been allegedly pursued) to act as witnesses and testify that there were weapons in the cars. The cars with weapons were videotaped.
Ingush militiamen who happened to drive past interfered into the “mopping-up” and managed to partly avert complete arbitrary imposition of will inside the cafй.
Among the detainees were two camp residents:
Kharon Nuradilovich Iasaev, b. 1984, a student in the eleventh-grade. On that day he passed the last graduation exam. He was detained on his way to fetch water. Since there was a long line, he left his water bottle at the tap and went out to have a look at what was going on outside the camp where he was detained.
Kiura Gaysumov, b. 1956, sat in front of the gates reading a newspaper called Pravozaschita (Defense of Human Rights.) The siloviki did not bother to ask him anything or to let them see his passport. According to eyewitnesses he was beaten up with special cruelty.
Their relatives applied to the Memorial HRC for help.
Later it became known that they were kept in a preliminary detention center in Vladikavkaz; a criminal case was instituted against them (Art 222, Part 2—illegal purchase, transfer, trade, movement or carrying of arms, their main parts, ammunition, etc.”) The Memorial HRC hired defense lawyer M. Gandarov. Later all the “suspects” were freed and the case against them dropped.
On June 22 at 03:00 p.m. armed people in masks abducted Minkail Dashaevich Ulubaev, 1971, permanently living in the village of Alkhan-Kala, Grozny-Selskiy District, Chechnya, from the forced migrant camp in Altievo (Republic of Ingushetia); there are about 2 thousand people living in the camp.
According to eyewitnesses, the abductors came in two cars: a white Zhiguli-6 and a white Niva (registration number K 573 XE/95). Since noon they had been seen parked on a hummock not far from the camp. As soon as the camp was surrounded, probably by law-enforcement structures that came later, the abductors entered the camp.
There were 7 or 10 of them; they spoke Russian, Chechen and Ingush. In the camp they broke several doors; they searched one of the rooms and appropriated 5,600 rubles. Local people say that the strangers were rude and swearing the entire time.
As soon as they saw M. Ulubaev running to his room they stopped him, beat him up with their submachinegun butts and put him into one of their cars. They opened submachine gun fire right under the feet of the women who came up to ask why Ulubaev was arrested. Two of the women had heart attacks; ambulances were called.
M. Ulubaev was taken away in an unknown direction.
According to the camp inhabitants there are cars parked nearly every evening in front of the camp; unidentified men in masks extort money from the forced migrants.

2. Mopping-up operations in mountain villages in Ingushetia
A mopping-up operation was carried out on June 6-7, 2003 in the mountain village of Arshty, Sunzha District, Ingushetia.
At 08:00 a.m. the village was blocked: nobody could either enter or leave it. Even the women who early in the morning had left for Sleptsovsk, the district center, and left babies at home could not return for two days.
The military did not allow the village administration head who a day before had left for the Sunzha district administration to come back; his car was fired upon because the operation did not involve local civilian authorities. The local militia was likewise kept out of the village.
The military never identified themselves and answered vaguely “We are from Khankala” to questions such as: “Who are you and where did you come from?” The state registration plates on their cars and armored carriers were covered with mud, yet none of the military had masks on.
Vakha Abubakarovich Bataev, b. 1960, who had left early in the morning to the neighboring village of Chemulga, tried to come back: he was worried about his 19-year-old son who remained in the mopping-up zone. The military did not let him in; they beat him up, broke four ribs and wounded him in the arm with a sharp object.
Ismail Magomedovich Albakov, b. 1956, wanted to leave together with a car of the Ingush FSC. He worked in Sleptsovsk and wanted to reach his place of work, yet those who were conducting the operation suspected him of fleeing; they took him out of the car and kept him for 24 hours in one of the vacant houses occupied by the military. He was freed after an interrogation.
The military plundered the houses in which they conducted the mopping-up operation. Armored carriers pushed through the gates and entered the yard of Humid Albakov, a parliament member of the Republic of Ingushetia. There was nobody at home so the military occupied the house for the entire “cleansing”. The military damaged the family property and took away everything they fancied. Neighbors saw them piling up furniture (armchairs, sofa cushions and chairs) on the armored carriers; they took away 16 mattresses, pillows, bedding and other small things. Several more houses were also plundered.
The military found an old document of a member of the Public Resistance Movement of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in the empty house of Umat-Hadji Bataev; they decided that it was enough reason to plunder his house. Everything was carried away on armored carriers.
They threw smoke generators into the yard of Usman Makhauri; all males who were in the yard, teenagers included, were forced to their knees. All were beaten up. Then the military asked for their passports; before leaving they said that the raid was a mistake. Nobody offered an apology.
All men’s clothing and women’s gold jewelry—chains, a ring, a watch--were taken from Shamsudin Makhauri’s house.
On June 17, 2003 a mopping-up operation started at about 10:00 a.m. in the village of Chemulga, Sunzha District, Republic of Ingushetia. The village was blocked with armored vehicles.
It took two days to complete (June17-18.) There was an armored carrier, its registration plated undecipherable and a UAZ-452 without registration plates parked at the entrance to the village on the road to the village of Arshty. Those who stood nearby, probably FSC officers, were checking documents and inspecting cars.
The operation was carried out by a mobile unit from Karabulak (Lieutenant-Colonel Iurin was in command.) The head of the local administration and a local militiaman were invited to take part.
According to administration head Machiev there were no grave violations, yet one of the locals, Butuev who tried to climb into his house through the window (his brother had left the village and had taken the keys with him) was beaten up.

3. Shelling of civilians: deaths and injuries
Early in June Khasan Gulaev, an 11th-grade student was gathering stones for household purposes at the outskirts of the village of Galashki. Suddenly, one of the military men riding on the armored carrier that was passing by opened fire at the young man and wounded him. The vehicle stopped, the military climbed down, collected the cartridge cases and drove away.
Some of the electronic media informed that on June 9 a military group of about 10 people opened fire at a federal unit at the outskirts of the Galashki village. As a result, two fighters were killed and three wounded: two AKM submachine guns and cartridges, traces of blood and dressing were found (RIA Novosti, ITAR-TASS, and press service of the United Military Group.)
To avoid mentioning that the counter-terrorist operation had spread outside Chechnya the military press service described the Ingush village Galashki as a Chechen one.
The Memorial HRC has no information to verify whether this June 9th encounter had actually taken place. Yet we do know that on June 10 the military killed a local man and gravely wounded a local woman in the same village of Galashki.
On June 16 Musa Abdrakhmanovich Zabiev, 1957, major, deputy commander of military unit No. 5560 who lives in the village of Galashki, Sunzha District, appealed to the Memorial HRC. He said that on June 10 his mother Tamara Sultanovna Zabieva, 1928, a mother-heroine who had given birth to and raised ten children, and his brothers Umar Abdurakhmanovich, b. 1972, a guard at the Nesterovskit Kirpichny Zavod firm, and Ali Abdurakhmanovich, b. 1975, a dispatcher at the local fire service, were working in the kitchen garden 4 km away from the village, not far from the road leading to the village of Dattykh.
At about 07:00 p.m. they finished working, boarded the blue ZIL-130 lorry (registration number P 921 AB/06) that belonged to the peasant farm Bart of which the brothers were members and drove home. They had barely covered about 200 meters when the lorry was fired at from both sides of the road, from a distance of about 30-40 meters. The fire was dense; a punctured wheel forced them to stop.
Tamara Zabieva received three wounds (to the waist, neck and head); two bullets were removed in the Sunzha district hospital, yet her condition remained still grave.
Ali took his mother out of the lorry and hid her in a ravine since firing continued; then he rushed to the village for help while Umar stayed with their mother.
Musa was at home when his daughter told him that she heard firing and an explosion from the direction of their kitchen garden. Having learned that his relatives had not returned Musa went to the kitchen garden and reached it 40 minutes after the incident. There was nobody there; having tuned to the militia radio channel he heard a militiaman of the local militia post reporting the accident to the Sunzha militia department: “A military column that was driving to the Dattykh village opened fire and wounded peaceful civilians.”
He thought that his relatives had already been driven to the local hospital and went to Galashki. He arrived at the hospital at practically the same time as local militiamen in a car (who had been warned by Ali). Having not found the victims, they drove to the place of the accident and searched the forest. Some 30 to 40 m away from the damaged car they found unconscious Tamara Zabieva who was driven first to the local and then to the district hospital. They failed to find Umar.
On the morning of June 11, deputy commander of the United Military Group, major-general, representative of the military prosecutor’s office in Khankala and a special department representative came to the village; they shifted the blame for the tragedy onto fighters.
On June 12, at about 12:30 p.m. Musa Akhmedovich Taysumov who had taken part in the rescue expedition found traces of dragging. He followed the traces and very soon saw a fresh mound. The militia inspected the place and found metal rods driven into the ground (they are normally used to plant wire mines as specialists explained later.) They removed the upper layer to reveal a corpse and more iron rods. Afraid that the burial had been mined, the militiamen called sappers who tied a rope to the leg protruding from the burial and pulled out the dead man. He was immediately identified as Umar Zabiev.
The body bore traces of numerous ruptures, bruises as well as numerous gunshot wounds.
Umar was buried in Galashki on June 12.
On June 17, 2003, at about 10:00 p.m. the forest between the villages of Chemulga and Berd-Iurt (Southern) of the Sunzha District was shelled by the Russian military. According to the local people at first they heard grenade launchers then submachine gun fire; some time later helicopters arrived and assault guns were used.
Nothing is known about what the reasons for the shelling.
On June 18, 2003, at about 07:00 p.m. helicopters opened fire in the forest between the villages of Chemulga and Berd-Iurt (Southern) of the Sunzha District; the gunfire lasted for about an hour and a half.
Nothing is known about the reasons for this operation either.

Eliza Musaeva, Memorial HRC

Appendix 12

“Migration Rights” Network
“Memorial” Human Rights Center

To:
Attorney General of the RF
V.V. Ustinov

Dear Vladimir Vassilievich!
I was approached by Boris Aslanovich Ozdoev who lives in the Republic of Ingushetia; in the past he worked at the public prosecutor’s office, later he worked as a judge for 26 years and earned great respect in this capacity. His family lives in Nazran at: Kozhedub St., 51; tel.: 22047-68.
His son, Rashid Borisovich Ozdoev, born in 1975, who works at the prosecutor’s office, was abducted on March 11, 2004.
Like his father before him, Rashid Borisovich Ozdoev started his career in the public prosecutorial organs. He worked as senior assistant to the public prosecutor and was responsible for supervising the FSC structures.
On the day of his abduction he participated in a meeting in Nalchik as member of the Governmental Commission in which he represented Ingushetia. According to eyewitnesses he, having come back to Ingushetia about 06:00 p.m., took his car out of the parking lot at the Magaz airport and drove toward Nazran. He did not reach his home. Convinced at first that he stayed overnight in Nalchik his family was not concerned.
On the following day his colleagues called his home to find out why Rashid had failed to turn up at the office. His father realized that his son had been missing since the previous evening and immediately launched a search using all his influence and connections.
On the evening of March 12 he was informed that Rashid’s car (a green Zhiguli-99) had been found in the FSC garage. The smashed car had been brought there on March 11 at about 11:00 p.m.
It was only three days later, on March 15 that the public prosecutor’s office of the Republic of Ingushetia instigated a criminal case (“abduction.”)
His father carried on his own investigation; in two weeks he found eyewitnesses to the abduction. They said that Rashid Ozdoev’s car had been stopped by several cars. The leading van, a Gazel from region 26 (Stavropol Area) blocked the road while a silver-colored Zhiguli-99 cars hit Ozdoev’s car. People who jumped out from one of the cars took Rashid and an unidentified passenger out of Rashid’s car, pushed them into a prisoner van and drove away toward Vladikavkaz.
Boris Ozdoev knows all the state registration numbers of the cars that went together with the van. He believes that they belong to the Osset FSC structures.
His repeated appeals have produced no results—when it comes down to it, the case is not being investigated at all. Boris Ozdoev believes that his son was abducted because he had informed General Koriakov, head of the FSC Administration of the Republic of Ingushetia about gross violations of the law by FSC structures.
Earlier, in mid-February 2004, Rashid Ozdoev was sent to Moscow where he stayed until March 6; he had brought a detailed report about FSC lawlessness with him.

I ask you to take this case concerning the disappearance of Rashid Ozdoev, which is of great governmental importance, under your personal control.
Sincerely yours,
Svetlana Gannushkina
Council Member, Memorial HRC
Member, Governmental Commission on Migration Policy
Member, Human Rights Commission at the President of the Russian Federation

Appendix 13

“Migration Rights” Network
“Memorial” Human Rights Center

I, Olga Tseytlina, work with the “Migration Rights” program at the St. Petersburg office of the Memorial HRC. I regularly receive forced migrants at the office of a public organization called “Assotsiatsia pomoshchi bezhentsam” (Migrant Help Association) situated at the address: 191011, St. Petersburg, Fontanka Embankment, 23; tel. 314-28-30.
I confirm that in our region people from the Chechen Republic are neither safe nor do they receive any support from the federal or local authorities.
They are denied the forced migrant status; registration with the structures of internal affairs; they are deliberately immersed in an atmosphere of discrimination and intolerance. Today we are primarily confronted with unlawful refusals to issue forced migrants from the Chechen Republic new passports attesting to their citizenship in the Russian Federation instead of the Soviet passports (of the 1974 type) they are carrying.
Here is an example: the Tsentralnoe district administration of internal affairs of St. Petersburg unlawfully refused to exchange the passport of Tenikin Vassily Nikolaevich (born on February 1, 1957) who is currently living in St. Petersburg, is registered at his place of temporary residence at his relatives’ apartment, and has the forced migrant status.
According to Art. 1 of the RF Federal Law “On Forced Migrants” he has been recognized as a person who left his permanent place of residence in the Chechen Republic because of violence and persecution; he has all the relevant documents. He does not want, and cannot, go back to the Chechen Republic to exchange his passport without risking his life.

It was back in 2002 that V.N. Tenikin applied to the passport-and-visa service of the Tsentralnoe administration of internal affairs of St. Petersburg, where he lived de facto, with a request to add a photo updating his age to his passport according to the rules. The officials convinced him that it was no longer required because the passport would be exchanged anyway. In 2003 he submitted his documents for the exchange; they were received and then returned to him because, he was told, they needed special additional verification. Who was supposed to check them and what for remained unclear.
Formally he was refused because he had no registration at a place of residence. They recommended that he go back to Chechnya and exchange his passport there even though this would place his life and health in danger. This contradicts domestic laws (Arts 6, Part 1, paras 1, 8; p. 1 of the RF Federal Law“On Forced Migrants”) and international laws ratified by the Russian Federation (Art 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.)
According to Point 10 of Decision No. 828 of the RF Government of July 8, 1997 and the Rules “On the Passport of the RF Citizen” approved by the Decision “the internal affairs structures should issue new passports or exchange old ones for those RF citizens who have no place of permanent residence at places where they are staying.”
According to Order No. 554 of the RF Ministry of the Interior of July 26, 1999 issued in fulfillment of the RF Supreme Court Decision Point 13 of the Instruction “On the Order of Issuing, Exchanging, Registering and Keeping Passports of the Citizen of the RF” was amended: citizens with no permanent residence should receive or exchange passports according to the place they are staying or the place of their de facto residence. In this way, V.N. Tenikin has the right to exchange his passport at the Tsentralny District of St. Petersburg where he, in fact, lives.
It should be added that people from the Chechen Republic are unlawfully denied registration at their places of stay for a period over 90 days when those who give them living space agree to register them for longer periods.
Russian laws do not envisage any special verifications of citizens who were registered in the Chechen Republic and left it. No published normative acts institute such additional requirements.
Under the constitutional provision of Art 3 of the Federal Law of the RF “On the Right of RF Citizens to Freedom of Movement and of Choosing Their Place of Residence within the RF,” registration or its absence cannot be used to limit or place any conditions on the realization of the rights and freedoms provided for by the RF Constitution and RF laws. This position was confirmed by the RF Constitutional Court in its determinations of April 25, 1995, April 4, 1996 and January 15, 1996.
The RF passport allows citizens to realize a host of their human rights and their civil rights including their constitutional rights (freedom of movement, the right to participate in state administration, to elect and to be elected, to draw pensions and allowances, to marry, to conclude deals, etc.) A refusal to issue a passport at a place of de facto residence deprives a forced migrant from the Chechen Republic of the right to realize his constitutional rights.
A refusal to issue pa assport to RF citizens registered in Chechnya is an act of discrimination that contradicts Art 19 (Parts 1 and 2) of the RF Constitution, which guarantees equal rights and freedoms to all irrespective of place of residence or registration everywhere across RF territory, the Chechen Republic included.

April 27, 2004

O.P. Tseytlina,
Legal advisor, Migration Rights program
St. Petersburg office

Appendix 14

Complaint
Of unlawful criminal prosecution and the violation of individual rights in the course of investigation

On April 30, 2004, at nearly 08:00 p.m. my son Aydamirov Ramzan Zelimkhanovoch came by car VAZ-2110 to his girlfriend Lena’s place. She lived in the 2 Pavlovskiy pereulok, close to the Paveletskiy railway station in Moscow. From her window Lena saw how my son was detained: a Gazel van parked next to my son’s car; several people got out of it, handcuffed my son and drove away in an unknown direction.
At about 01:30 in the morning operatives arrived to search my home. They told me that Ramzan had been detained for possessing drugs and taken to the Brateevo militia department. The search produced nothing illegal. One of the operatives told me that my son should thank his third cousin Timur Kurumov who was detained and gave testimony against him for his troubles.
Our family had never had any problems with the law; Ramzan is candidate of economic science; he is a promising young academic. Because of his nationality he could not find a job for a long time. His CVs were accepted but as soon as the prospective employer learned that he was a Chechen, his candidacy was politely rejected. Both his detention and the search were a real shock for me.
On May 1, 2004, at about 02:00 p.m. defense lawyer N.A. Dmitrenko called me and asked whether I wanted to sign an agreement with him; he added that at that moment he was in the office of investigator Shiriaeva, that my son needed a lawyer and that he was prepared to act as one though he was it a rush to get to a barbecue party. He mentioned the sum involved; I agreed because I was so shocked by what had transpired, and all my friends and relatives had left Moscow for the holidays and I had nobody to consult with. Today I bitterly regret that I agreed to his offer: he turned out to be an unprincipled lawyer, in bed with the militia, who convinced my son to confess to violating Art 228 Part 1 of the RF Criminal Code in exchange for not being accused of a much graver crime and being left alone, meaning not being tortured with electric shocks and beaten.
When I came to the office of investigator Shriaeva to meet the lawyer and to pay him I saw my son handcuffed and badly beaten. He told me that he had been tortured with electric shocks, and he had to admit that he had violated Art 228 Part 1 of the RF Criminal Code. When I asked the investigator and the lawyer what had happened to my son both said that he had fallen down. I demanded to know how this had happened. When he was placed in the Ziablikovo temporary detention center he had been examined; there are documents about his medical examination that can be obtained there.
I have kept the clothes that they returned to me from the Ziablikovo detention center, which my son wore at the moment of his detention and admission guilt: they are dirty with traces of blood and footmarks on them. The car was returned partially dismantled, minus tape recorder and sound columns. To this day, I still have not gotten back the keys to my apartment that my son had about him or his mobile phone. Dear prosecutor, I ask that you look into the foundations of my complaint as follows:
First, my son was detained at 2 Pavlovskiy pereulok not at the Borisovskie prudy St., 26-2 as the documents say; Second, the fact of beating and torture should be investigated. I ask you to demand all the necessary documents from Ziablikovo and question its officers about all the surrounding circumstances;
Third, it is necessary to find out how the investigation structures managed to obtain a medical document about my son’s drug addiction. I am a doctor myself and I am sure I could have detected drug addiction in my son; Fourth, it is necessary to establish the nature and the scope of damage done to our car; to take measures to pay for it and to return the apartment keys and the mobile phone.
I ask you, esteemed prosecutor, to take into account all the circumstances, the personal qualities of my son (he is a candidate of science, has never had any run ins with the law, and has a permanent Moscow registration) as well as my poor health (my heart condition is poor and I am in the process of registering as an invalid) and to take measures to change the punihsment such that it will not deprive him of his freedom.
I would like to be informed in written form of the results of the investigation of my complaint and the measures taken to investigate the criminal case within the procedure proscribed by law at the address indicated above.

Respectfully yours,
Kurazova Z.G.

Appendix 15

Interview with Nikita Petrovich Dmitrienko, born 1977

Our family lived in Grozny, where my father was a drilling foreman, my mother was an accountant at a commercial enterprise; my brother was a mechanic; after graduation I trade for three years to be a blacksmith.
When the war started we tried to settle in another place; we went to our relatives. Nobody wanted us there; we could not settle and came back. We had lived through the first war, then another war started.
On December 16, 2000 a contract soldier from the 47th or 52nd unit stationed at a mechanical repair station was killed.
On that day I met two more servicemen on contract; they were talking among themselves about killing a local person, cutting off his head and displaying it for everybody to see. When we met he asked me: “Am I right?” I pretended not to hear him and shrugged. They started swearing.
On December 18 at 6 in the evening I met the same servicemen; they suddenly appeared from behind the corner; they were drunk. One of them readied his submachine gun, another recognized me and started asking me how I had come here. Aware that the military did not like the local Russians I answered that I had come from Russia. One of them delivered a blow to my nose and teeth, when I fell down another started stabbing me. Passers-by could not interfere. The servicemen ordered me to remain on the ground when they had gone. I felt that I was losing blood and tried to rise. I could not run because one of my feet was numb. They saw me rising and turned back. One of them shouted: “He is a lively one. Let’s cut off his head.” He attacked me with his knife. I pretended to be dead; then I lost consciousness. When I recovered I was alone.
Later people from a house nearby took me in, saved my life and complained to the prosecutor’s office.
My mom went to the prosecutor’s office several times. She demanded that the killers be found and threatened to write to President Putin. My father advised her to keep quiet. She started receiving threats.
On February 21 2001 my father was outside, my mom was at home. When my father knocked at the door she opened it. Four men rushed in together with him. They shouted: “This is your end, you will never go anywhere again” and opened fire at my parents. They wounded my father in the leg yet he escaped to the yard, they did not pursue him. My mum was killed.
On May 18, 2001 I was captured once more; they kept me at the checkpoint in Gorogorsk and forced me to perform dirty work, they insulted me and regularly beat me. When they were forcing me into the car they said: “Nikita, we have been looking for you for a long time.” Once I managed to get out into the street and saw a bus passing the checkpoint. One of our neighbors happened to be on it. She started asking me whether I was being kept there by force. I hinted that it was true. She was bold enough to hold up the bus so that I could board it.
Because we are living in constant fear for our lives, we have never told this story to journalists.
Recorded on July 3, 2002
Svetlana Gannushkina

Nikita Dmitrenko appealed to our organization soon after he recovered from his wounds in 2001. The right side of his face and neck was covered (and remains covered) with scars left by a knife (about 2.5 cm long); his right leg was aching and he limped. It was at that time that we realized that he should emigrate. For some time we lost track of him but he reappeared in 2002. Since he needed urgent medical assistance, he was placed in a hospital. At the same time, we applied to several embassies with requests to give Nikita Dmitrenko asylum. In the fall of 2003 he left Russia and is now in another country. It seems that Nikita Dmitrienko’s fate is turning around.

Appendix 16

“Migration Rights” Network

“Memorial” Human Rights Center

To whom it may concern!

I was indignant to learn that my name and the name of the organizations I work with are being used to confirm the possibility of deporting Chechen residents applying for asylum in other countries to Russia.

I am convinced that any Chechen person arriving from Russia can be given a refugee status rightfully in accordance with the definition in the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (with the sole exception of the Akkii Chechens living in Dagestan and comprising a special group).

Since 1994, I have collected vast evidence confirming the right of Chechen residents to asylum, and, after documenting it, forwarded it to various nations' migration authorities and NGOs or handed it to people seeking asylum. This is a part of my daily work, which I believe to be very important because it can save people from severe sufferings and even the real threat of death.

Every year we compile reports on the condition of Chechen residents inside and outside the republic. Such a report is being prepared this yeaк as well. There is no basis for contending that the situation has changed and that Chechen residents returned to Russia are guaranteed safety. The bombing of Rigakhoi on April 8 killing the Dadaev family - a mother and her five small children – demonstrates this as clearly as possible. This is not an exceptional case: in 2004 we have registered dozens of detainees disappearing, their dead bodies with traces of torture occasionally discovered by local residents.

Unwilling to take responsibility for what is going on in Chechnya, competent agencies in some western countries distort information they receive from Memorial, and from me in particular. In response to some inquiries, I answered that I did not know of a case when a Chechen person was persecuted exactly for having sought asylum in a foreign state and then been deported to Russia. (

However, I never said there were no such cases

This does not mean that, upon returning, a Chechen resident will be able to find a place where they can be registered and where they will be able to live in peace, because there is no such place for Chechens in Russia. Our reports give detailed accounts of this, and another one will be given this year. To be registered in Russian regions, one has to have a place where the owners will give their consent to this. However, the police "warns against" or simply threatens willing landlords. Therefore, such people practically do not exist. Only close relatives and friends are ready to receive Chechens, but their apartments have long been overcrowded.

There are places where Chechen residents are persecuted to a smaller extent (Saratov, Nizhny Novgorod) and where it is simply impossible to live (Krasnodar territory, for example). There are serious troubles everywhere, however. Besides, the practice of tough special operations, abductions and illegal detentions of people has spread to Ingushetia in 2003, the only region that had accepted Chechens.

It should be taken into account that getting to Europe is extremely difficult and obtaining a visa is expensive and impossible without a bribe (even our worker Lydia Yusupova, a Martin Ennals Award winner, had serious trouble getting out to Europe). Therefore, deported Chechens do not have a penny in their pockets when they find themselves in Russia once again.

Of course, the Memorial Human Rights Center does not consider deportation acceptable. We are doing what we can to make western officials hear us. Yet they hear what they want to.

Our information is called statistically unreliable, and we are accused of not mentioning the thousands who remain alive when we speak of the hundreds dying. However, even statistics show that the number of civilians dying in Chechnya is comparable to the number of Soviet people who died during Stalin's big terror. All this can be found on Memorial's website at

www.memo.ru

Western authorities' attitude makes some refugees invent stories about arrests and torture that deported people experienced after deportation. People lie in the hope of coming back and obtain asylum, because the terrible truth doesn’t seem convincing enough. Occasionally, western NGOs support this version trying to achieve a ban on deportation in the easiest way possible.

If all Chechens coming back to Russia from Europe were threatened with special danger, which alone would make their deportation impossible, our common work would be easier. That is not so, but what is much more important is that all of Chechnya's residents currently need protection because they are facing a real threat of death in their homeland, while their living conditions are unbearable. If it is impossible to stop the slaughter in Chechnya, those few who get away have the right to be given asylum in any state party to the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.

Head of The Civic Assistance Committee,

Head of The «Migration Rights» Network of The MEMORIAL HRC, The member of The RF Presidential Commission of Human Rights

Svetlana Gannushkina

Appendix 17

Deputy

Attorney General

Of the Russian Federation

Chief Military Prosecutor

Dear Vladimir Petrovich!

The Main Military Prosecutor’s Office acting within its competence investigated the facts you supplied in your application to the RF Attorney General of the deaths in the Chechen Republic on April 8, 2004 of people living in the Rigakhoi village Tsintsaeva (Damameva) M.K. and her five small children and of the detention on March 18, 2004 of Khambulatov T.R. living in the village of Savelievskaia.

A criminal case categorized as involuntary homicide (Art 109 Part 3 of the RF Criminal Code) was instituted in relation to the event that had taken place in Rigakhoi. It is being investigated by the military prosecutor’s office of the United Group of Forces for conducting counter-terrorist operations in the North Caucasian region of the Russian Federation.

Preliminary investigation established that Tsintsaeva M.K. and her children died of asphyxiation caused by the the collapse of an inhabited house. The bodies revealed no traces of the effects of aviation bombs or other shells. Experts are establishing the reasons for the house’s collapse. The investigation is controlled by the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office.

According to the information available regarding T.R Khambulatov who was detained on March 18, 2004 his case is being investigated by the Naurskaia District Prosecutor’s Office of the Chechen Republic.

For this reason a copy of your letter was sent for consideration on its merits to the Deputy Attorney General of the RF Fridinskiy S.N.

Sincerely yours,

Colonel-General of Justice A.N. Savenkov