Paris, 24 October 2002

The Chechnya Committee and the FIDH firmly condemn the action perpetrated, on 23 October, by an armed commando of Chechnya Independence fighters who have taken hostage hundreds of people in a Moscow theatre.

They recall that the crimes committed by the Russian forces against the civilian population in Chechnya can under no circumstances justify reprisals against the Russian civilian population.

This hostage-taking is a dramatic reminder that a terrible war has been raging in camera for three years, with the silent complicity of the international community. The Chechnya Committee and the FIDH deplore the fact that such an event had to happen for the world to discover, apparently, that the normalisation announced by Moscow was a delusion.

Since September 1999 the Russian forces have been waging a new war in Chechnya, characterised by a policy of terror against the civilian population and by the daily perpetration of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Russian authorities have persistently refused to enter into genuine negotiations with the elected President, A. Maskhadov, whose representatives have condemned the hostage-taking.

The Chechnya Committee and the FIDH call for the immediate, unconditional release of all the hostages without exception, and at the same time urge the Russian authorities to refrain from reprisals against the Chechnya populations, in Chechnya naturally, but also in Russia.

The Chechnya Committee and the FIDH support all negotiating efforts between the hostage-takers and the authorities, carried out inter alia by the Russian and international organisations.

Finally our organisations - as they have always done - call for the resumption of negotiations between the Russian authorities and President Maskhadov, who was legitimately elected.

For more information on the exactions committed by the Russian troops in Chechnya, on the present status of the negotiations, and on the attitude of the international community towards the Chechnya tragedy,
visit the Websites of the Chechnya Committee and the FIDH

http://www.fidh.org/europ/tchetch.htm
http://tchetchenieparis.free.fr/

Contact presse : 01 43 55 25 18 (FIDH)
06 14 02 74 52 (Comité Tchétchénie)