PACE Rapporteurs visit Chechnya and IngushetiaRuslan Isayev & Timur Aliyev, North Caucasus - Rudolf Bindig and Andreas Gross, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's (PACE) Rapporteurs on the Chechen Republic, went to Chechnya and Ingushetia on June 2-3.
In Grozny they visited a public school, local university and temporary accommodation centers.
In Ingushetia they went to the tent camp Satsita where about 300 refugees still reside. Some of them complained to Bindig and Gross that they are being forced to return to Chechnya.
“But since they bribed us with money, we’ve agreed to go back,” explained Daudova, one of the female inhabitants.
According to her, the administrative head of the Sunzhenskoi district in Ingushetia, Alikhan Parov, offered to give $500 to 10 families that would remove their tents and leave. "However, the rooms allotted to them in the temporary accommodation centers in Chechnya are extremely small; and the food is also of very poor quality."
Gross not only promised to investigate these complaints, but also offered his personal protection to Daudova for her frank statements.
In Nazran, capital of Ingushetia, the men also met with local human rights defenders and members of various public agencies. The meetings were held in the office of the local branch of Russian human rights organization Memorial, and also included people whose relatives disappeared in Chechnya and Ingushetia.
The meeting was very nearly derailed because of the many objections voiced by those accompanying the Rapporteurs, such as Deputy Leonid Slutskoi of the Russian State Duma.
Nevertheless, at the end of the meeting Bindig declared that no politician from the Council of Europe could be pleased to hear about the somewhat divided situation in the republic. On one hand, one can see that schools, universities and houses are being reconstructed; yet on the other hand, inhabitants live in sordid conditions and many cases of human rights violations still exist, he stated.
Bindig and Gross will present PACE with a more detailed report of their findings. (S/E,T)
DISCUSSION FORUM
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