Summary of the main news related to the conflict in Chechnya. Compiled by Prague Watchdog.
Monday, March 25
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it had sent a note to Georgia asking it for the extradition of "the citizen of the Russian Federation Ruslan Gelayev", a prominent Chechen field commander, who is believed to stay in Georgia and wanted by Russian federal prosecution for "serious crimes".
The Russian military started an eight-day mopping up operation in the village of Tsotsin-Yurt, during which human rights violations took place.
Tuesday, March 26
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement protesting against the seminar "Chechnya between Europe and Russia", which took place in Paris on March 22-25 with prominent Ichkerian representatives and Chechnya experts participating. The ministry said the seminar undermines efforts to find a politicial solution to the conflict in Chechnya and goes against the worldwide fight on international terrorism.
Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Federal Security Service (FSB), which is in charge of what Russia describes as an "anti-terrorist operation" in Chechnya, told a news conference in St Petersburg that Russia is carrying out the operation "very successfully" and that considerable progress had been achieved in the republic.
Wednesday, March 27
The Chechen police has been banned from wearing masks covering the face of policemen, according to a decision made at a recent meeting of Moscow-appointed Chechen Premier Stanislav Ilyasov with the heads of the republic's power structures, said chief of Chechen special police forces OMON Musa Gazimagomedov.
Chechnya's chief health inspector Taisiya Mirzoyeva expressed concerns about the recent deterioration in the sanitary-epidemiologic situation in Chechnya, pointing especially at the increased spreading of tuberculosis and lack of resources to tackle it. -- Strana.ru
Thursday, March 28
Lieutenant-General General Vladimir Moltenskoi, who commands the combined Russian forces in Chechnya, issued Order No. 80, which is aimed at higher transparency of Russian mopping-up operations in Chechnya. According to the order, commanding officers will have to identify themselves and lists of all persons detained during such operations, which can only be launched with Moltenskoi's personal approval, will have to be compiled and made available to local administration heads.
At the end of a two-day inter-parliamentary forum on combating terrorism held in St Petersburg, parliamentarians of the Council of Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States in their final declaration shared the concern of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament that the struggle against terrorism must not infringe human rights and, in particular, that suspected terrorists should not be extradited to countries which continue to apply the death penalty.
The Islamic Institute, based in Kurchaloy and established in 1991 by the current head of pro-Moscow Chechen administration Akhmad Kadyrov, resumed its work, thanks to financial support of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration and government, and received a university licence from the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, said rector of the institute, professor Akhmad-Khadzi Temirsultanov. -- Strana.ru
Friday, March 29
Foreign Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria Ilyas Akhmadov issued a statement saying that the peace process concerning the conflict in Chechnya has actually never started.
Saturday, March 30
Russian presidential spokesman on Chechnya Sergey Yastrzhembski sharply criticised some international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Medecins Sans Frontieres, for their allegedly biased and unreliable reports on the human rights situation in Chechnya, after some human rights bodies, including Human Rights Watch, this week called on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, whose fifty-eighth session is currently underway in Geneva, to act on Chechnya.
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