According to the information received from the NGO Memorial, on January 21, 2005, at 6.30 p.m., Mr. Makhmut Dchaparovic Magomadov, a lawyer and member of the Chechen Committee for National Salvation and an expert of the International Helsinki Federation in Northern Caucasus, was abducted as he was visiting Mr. Amirov, a Chechen citizen. As he drove to Mr. Amirov’s house with his wife and two children, they noticed that they were being followed. After Mr. Magomadov entered Mr. Amirov’s house with their four-year-old daughter, several cars arrived and some armed and camouflaged Chechen-
speaking men ran out of the cars; Mr. Magomadov’s wife, who had stayed in the car with their baby, got out and was stopped by the men and one of them shouted: "We have him and his family!". The men surrounded the house and dragged Mr. Magomadov and his daughter out. He was violently put in a car, which then drove in the direction of Grozny. According to the information received, these people are believed to be members of local authorities under the authority of Mr. Ramzan Kadyrov. The Observatory fears that this fact is connected with his litigation of cases of human rights violations.
Moreover, according to the information from Memorial and the Russian-
Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), on January 20, 2005, Mr. Stanislav Dmitrievsky, chief editor for the publications of the Information Centre of the RCFS, was summoned to the Federal Security Service (FSB) regional office in Nizhny Novogorod. Mr. Putanov, the main investigator on "extremely important issues and questions relative to the defence of the Constitution", informed him that he was being heard as a witness without specifying any judicial case. He was interrogated on the finances of the Information Centre and was asked a series of questions in order to know who was responsible for the content of the Human Rights Defence Newspaper published by the Centre. As he replied that he himself was responsible for this, the investigator responded that there were certain limits put by Russian legislation that people could not cross. In particular, Mr. Putanov mentioned the publication in the newpaper’s April-May 2004 edition of two statements by Messrs. Akhmed Zakaev and Aslan Maskhadov, two Chechen separatist leaders, calling for a peaceful end to the Russian - Chechen conflict. Mr. Putanov then presented a seizure warrant of the Information Centre. Later on that afternoon, the FSB seized the newspaper’s statute, registration documents, as well as employment contracts belonging to collaborators of the Information Centre, who live in Chechnya.
On January 24, 2005, two other members of the RCFS Information Centre were summoned to the FSB as "witnesses": Ms. Natalya Chercelevskaïa, treasurer, and Ms. Tatiana Banina, a member. They were informed that the Prosecutor considers the publication of Messrs. Maskhadov and Zakaev’s appeals as a violation of article 280 of the criminal code referring to "incitement to change the constitutional order". Some journalists who were accompanying them were forbidden to take pictures outside the building and a journalist of Novaia Gazetta had his film taken from his camera. In view of these last events, the Observatory fears that judicial proceedings be opened against Mr. Stanislav Dmitrievsky.
Finally, on January 12, 2005, some camouflaged and armed men raided the office of the Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in Nazran, Ingushetia. The seven people who were present in the office - four staff members and three visitors - were threatened, the men being forced to lie down on the ground whereas the women were pushed against the wall. The telephone lines were cut and documents thrown to the floor. A man wearing civilian clothes who presented himself as Mr. Kyryl Chvedov, a member of the Ingush Department of the FSB, checked their identity documents and made some copies of them, as well as of the Council’s statutes. When Mrs. Taïssa Isaeva asked for some explanations, he answered that they had been informed of the presence of bandits in the office. They took two computers and asked Mrs. Isaeva to come back the following day to the FDB offices in Magas, to get them back. The Council of NGOs has been working since 2002 on the situation of human rights in Russia and in Chechnya.
In view of these events, the Observatory urges Your Excellencies to:
– guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of all human rights defenders in the Russian Federation;
– ensure that all efforts be deployed to locate the whereabouts of Mr. Magomadov and that an investigation be thoroughly conducted in order to identify those responsible and bring them to justice;
– put an end to any act of retaliation and harassment against the members of the Council of NGOs and of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, in particular the chief editor of its Information Centre, Mr. Stanislav Dmitrievsky, as well as the Centre’s collaborators living in Chechnya;
– comply with the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of United Nations on December, 9 1998; in particular its article 1 that states "Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels", as well as article 12.2., which states that "The State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration";
– conform with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international and regional instruments relative to human rights, binding the Russian Federation.
In hope you will take these requests into account,
We remain,
Sidiki KABA President of FIDH
Eric SOTTAS Director of OMCT