On April 20, 2011, the Human Rights Centre "Memorial" held a press-conference together with the Committee Against Torture, the Moscow Helsinki Group and Human Rights Watch, entitled: "Chechen Republic: the Investigation Committee and the Prosecutor admit that they are helpless". After having presented a number of official documents, human rights defenders present at the event reported that staff members of the Investigation Committee and of the Prosecutor’s Office of Chechnya had admitted that cases concerning abductions and extrajudicial executions have not been investigated.
In reaction, the following day, Chechen Ombudsman Nurdi Nukhazhiev publicly criticised the speakers through a declaration posted on the Grozny Inform website (grozny-inform.ru), accusing them of being biased and working off their donors’ money. He added : "In every way I am convinced that we need to put an end to the claims of the above-mentioned NGOs to have the exclusive right to give the definition of ’human rights’ and to evaluate the human rights situation in Russia, and in particular in the Chechen Republic".
The Observatory condemns these declarations against human rights defenders and considers that the above-mentioned statement manifestly aims at discrediting and hindering their activities.
The Observatory is particularly concerned that such a statement intervenes in a context of impunity and permanent threats and defamation campaigns against human rights defenders.
The Observatory recalls in particular that the investigation on the murder in July 2009 of Ms. Natalia Estemirova, leading researcher at the Grozny office of the Human Rights Centre “Memorial”, is still ongoing and has not yielded any visible results to date.
The Observatory therefore calls upon the Russian authorities to guarantee in all circumstances the physical and psychological integrity of all human rights defenders in the Russian Federation and to put an end to defamation and harassment against them, in line with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the General Assembly on December 9, 1998.