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HRW World Report 2001 - The Russian Federation

HRW World Report 2001 - The Russian Federation

1) Human Rights Developments
2) Defending Human Rights
3) The Role of the International Community

The year was dominated by Russia's brutal war in Chechnya and fears of an impending crackdown on civil and political rights. Russian soldiers and police committed war crimes and other serious violations of the rules of human rights and humanitarian law in Chechnya. Following Vladimir Putin's election as Russia's new president in March, the political climate changed as officials' public statements showed increased intolerance to criticism and a general trend toward a new information order, of which the crackdown on the media conglomerate Media Most was the most emphatic. Abuse in the criminal justice system and army continued unabated, prisons remained severely overcrowded, the situation in many orphanages remained desperate, the state continued to be indifferent to cases of domestic violence and rape, and religious freedoms were further eroded. The government once more failed to introduce the structural reforms required to improve human rights observance in these areas.

Vladimir Putin, the acting president following Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation on December 31, 1999, entered the March 26 presidential elections as a clear favorite and won in the first round with just over 50 percent of the vote-but not without widespread election fraud. Putin quickly moved to solidify his power by reigning in powerful regional leaders and attacking the "oligarchs," Russia's very wealthy new economic elite. He created seven administrative regions led by representatives responsible to the president alone and forced legislation through parliament to strip regional leaders of their seats in the Federal Council.

Putin's background as a KGB official sparked fears of an impending crackdown on human rights. Despite numerous public assurances of support for democratic values, Putin's reactions to critical media coverage and some of his actions fuelled these fears. The appointment of former KGB officer Vladimir Cherkesov as Putin's representative for the Northern Russia administrative region was another troubling sign; Cherkesov was known for his participation in persecuting dissidents in Soviet times and more recently in the prosecution of environmentalist Alexander Nikitin.

The war in Chechnya continued throughout the year. After taking Chechnya's capital Grozny in early February, Russian troops exercised nominal control over most of the republic's territory. Rebel forces retreated into the mountains to fight a guerrilla war, staging surprise attackson Russian positions and convoys and murdering Chechens working in the new pro-Russian administration. Both sides showed scant respect for international law, but the far larger force of Russian troops backed by air power and artillery committed the lion's share of violations.

In an attempt to limit casualties among its soldiers, Russia relied heavily on air attacks. Villages and towns were "softened up" by prolonged aerial bombardments and shelling before Russian troops moved in. This strategy led to large numbers of casualties among civilians and destruction of civilian property on a horrific scale. In many of the aerial or artillery attacks Russian officers did not differentiate between military and civilian objects. When targeting military objects, Russian forces frequently used force that was clearly excessive compared to the military gain to be expected.

The city of Grozny, bombed for three straight months, from November 1999 to early February 2000, was essentially treated as one enormous military target. Though the vast majority of civilians had left the city before the assault started, an estimated twenty to forty thousand civilians, many too poor, sick, or infirm to leave, remained. These people were given little thought as the Russian military machine obliterated the city. The only hospital that functioned throughout these months-though heavily damaged-treated 5,600 people (including Chechen fighters) for injuries sustained from the bombing campaign; according to estimates this was only about half the total number of injured. Many thousands of civilians were believed to have died in Grozny alone.

On January 31 and February 1, rebel forces abandoned Grozny. An estimated two thousand Chechen fighters quit the city and stumbled into a minefield that claimed the lives of three field commanders and at least one hundred regular fighters; hundreds more suffered serious injury, including notorious commander Shamil Basaev. Russian artillery and aviation tracked the fighters' flight from Grozny to the mountainous south, destroying the villages through which the fighters passed with total disregard for the civilian population. One of the worst hit villages was Katyr-Yurt. On February 4, up to twenty thousand civilians desperately fled an intense bombardment there that commenced following the arrival of large numbers of fighters in the village. At least two hundred civilians died while many more were injured. Russian soldiers then systematically looted the village and destroyed civilian property. The village of Gekhi-Chu was given similar treatment on February 7. Russian forces summarily executed at least seven people.On March 4, up to a thousand Chechen fighters entered the village of Komsomolskoye, apparently seeking food and shelter. Russian forces surrounded the village and then, as civilians sought to flee, subjected the village to a withering assault, totally flattening it. At least one hundred civilians were unable to leave the village and were believed killed during the shelling. Hundreds of fighters also reportedly died in the attack. Russian forces refused to provide exit routes to civilians fleeing from fighting and attacked convoys of displaced persons on several occasions. Displaced persons recounted numerous tales of perilous escapes under constant fire and shelling along roads that had been declared safe exit routes. On October 29, 1999, Russian planes fired multiple rockets at a convoy of Chechen civilians, including five clearly marked Red Cross vehicles, on the road between Grozny and Nazran, leaving at least fifty dead. The convoy, consisting of hundreds of cars, was travelling from the Ingush border back to Grozny after Russian forces had refused to open the border to Ingushetia. The attack took place in excellent weather conditions and it appeared inconceivable that the pilots were not aware that they were targeting civilians. The Russian military claimed it destroyed two trucks with rebel fighters in the attack.

Russian forces showed scant respect for medical neutrality. Russian bombs partially or fully destroyed many of Chechnya's main health care facilities, including every single hospital in Grozny. Russian forces detained and ill-treated several medical professionals who had treated Chechen fighters. Chechen rebels threatened to kill at least one Chechen doctor for treating wounded Russian soldiers.

After moving into villages and towns left by rebel fighters, Russian forces carried out "mopping up" operations. These operations, meant to check for remaining rebels, frequently turned into rampages during which soldiers and riot police looted and torched homes, detained civilians at random, and raped women. Just three such operations, in Alkhan Yurt, and in the Novye Aldy and Staropromyslovskii districts of Grozny, resulted in the confirmed summary executions of more than 130 civilians. Human Rights Watch received over one hundred more allegations of summary executions, many of which it was unable to verify.

In Alkhan Yurt, Russian soldiers went on a two-week rampage after entering the village on December 1, 1999. After first temporarily expelling hundreds of civilians, soldiers systematically looted and burned the village and killed at least fourteen civilians. In the Staropromyslovskii district of Grozny, Russian soldiers killed at least fifty-one civilians between late December 1999 and early February 2000; some were simply shot, others were first tortured. On February 5, Russian forces summarily executed at least sixty civilians in the Novye Aldy and Chernorechie suburbs of Grozny, including a one-year-old baby and a woman who was eight months pregnant. Soldiers pillaged and deliberately torched numerous houses.

Looting was rampant throughout Chechnya. Soldiers systematically stripped bare civilian homes after taking control of villages. Soldiers took not only valuables, money, and electronic equipment but often also food, mattresses, windows, and even floorboards. Many civilians reported seeing soldiers load looted goods onto trucks that were subsequently driven out of the republic. Soldiers deliberately burned thousands of homes throughout Chechnya.

Russian soldiers were believed to have raped numerous Chechen women. Considering the great cultural stigma attached to rape in Chechnya's predominantly Muslim communities, allegations received by Human Rights Watch were believed to represent no more than a small fraction of the total. There was evidence that Russian servicemen raped three women in Alkhan Yurt and six in Novye Aldy. A woman from the village of Tangi-Chu was raped and murdered by a Russian officer.

Russian forces detained tens of thousands of Chechens, often arbitrarily, on suspicion of belonging to rebel forces or assisting them. Many of these Chechens faced beatings and torture at detention centers throughout Chechnya. Many of those detained were released only after relatives paid a "ransom" to police or prison guards.

Large scale arrests started in January 2000 after Gen. Viktor Kazantsev blamed "groundless trust" in Chechen civilians for setbacks in Russia's military campaign. He stated that "only children up to ten and men over sixty, and women, will henceforth be regarded as refugees." By late May, the Russian Ministry of Interior announced that over ten thousand people had been detained in Chechnya since the beginning of the year. At the time of writing, Russian forces continued to detain large numbers of Chechen civilians.

Large scale torture and ill-treatment took place in Chernokozovo in January and early February. Upon arrival, detainees were forced to run through a gauntlet of guards wielding rubber batons and rifle butts. Thirty-two-year-old Aindi Kovtorashvili, detained on January 11, had a serious shrapnel wound to the head when he arrived at Chernokozovo, but guards made him "run the gauntlet" anyway. He collapsed under the blows and died. Guards brutally beat detainees whenever they were taken out of their overcrowded cells for questioning and sometimesduring interrogations. Several detainees described methods of torture, including injections, electric shock and beatings to the genitals, beatings on the soles of the feet, and rape of both men and women.

As Chernokozovo attracted international attention, the Russian government "cleaned up" the detention center and torture and ill-treatment continued unabated at other locations. Some of the most serious abuses then took place at the so-called internat in Urus-Martan, a former boarding school for girls. Allegations of ill-treatment also came from temporary police precincts throughout the Russian controlled territory of Chechnya.

Many of those who were released from detention were "bought" out by relatives. Extortion demands made upon prisoners' relatives were so common that in many cases it appeared that the detention itself was motivated solely as a money-making enterprise. Ransom varied from 2,000 rubles (approximately U.S. $80) to U.S. $5,000. Extortion was also rampant at hundreds of Russian checkpoints throughout Chechnya.

Those displaced by the conflict faced difficult conditions in refugee camps in Ingushetia and Chechnya itself. The Russian government's efforts to provide the displaced with food, medical care, and shelter were insufficient, leaving the brunt of the burden to humanitarian organizations. On various occasions, the government pressured displaced people to return to Chechnya by depriving them of food rations or simply attempting to drive the train carriages, the temporary homes of some, back into Chechnya.

Chechen rebels also showed little respect for international humanitarian law. They summarily executed at least some captured Russian soldiers and murdered numerous Chechens who worked in the new, pro-Russian administration. Chechen rebels frequently endangered civilians by placing headquarters and garrisons in densely populated areas or by firing at federal positions from such places. On several occasions, rebels reacted violently when villagers asked them to leave in order to spare their villages from bombardments. Chechen criminal groups kidnapped one Russian and one French journalist in October 1999. Both were later released. Unknown Chechens summarily executed Vladimir Yatsina, a Russian photographer, in February after kidnapping him in Ingushetia in the summer of 1999.

The Russian government did not hold those guilty of violations accountable. By September, not a single Russian soldier or police officer had been charged with or detained in connection with the massacres in Alkhan Yurt and in the Staropromyslovskii and Novye Aldy districts of Grozny. In Staropromyslovskii district, prosecutors were investigating only one killing out of the fifty-one that were documented. Officially announced investigations into other incidents lacked credibility. In response to allegations of abuses, President Putin appointed Vladimir Kalamanov as his special representative for human rights in Chechnya in February. The special representative's office provided important services to Chechens but did not significantly contribute to the accountability process.

Chechens in Moscow faced very serious abuses in the aftermath of the bombings of two Moscow apartment buildings in September 1999. Federal and local authorities took a series of draconian administrative measures against non-Muscovites as a result of which many children could not go to school while adults had trouble finding work, getting married, or receiving passports. At the same time, Moscow police were given carte blanche to terrorize ethnic Chechens living in the city. Police dragged more than twenty thousand Chechens to police stations, photographing and fingerprinting many of them. According to the Russian human rights organizations Memorial and Civic Assistance, police prosecuted at least fifty Chechens after planting drugs and ammunition in their clothes or their apartments. Moscow courts found most of these Chechens guilty despite overwhelming evidence that the charges were trumped up. Members of other ethnic minorities also faced increased harassment by police.

When Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov spoke of a possible "Chechen connection" following another bombing in Moscow in August 2000, Chechens appeared to be in for a repeat performance. However, the dramatic sinking of a Russian submarine diverted attention from the bombing and police apparently abandoned the crackdown, though not before detaining and seriously beating at least some Chechens.

Moscow authorities used the August explosion to defend Moscow's longstanding propiska, or residency permit, system. Federal prosecutors had earlier ordered Moscow to get rid of the system to bring regional legislation in line with federal laws. At the time of writing, Moscow maintained its propiska system.

Media freedom was another casualty of the Chechnya campaign as Russia's leadership severely limited access to the war zone and became increasingly intolerant to criticism. Most Russian media voluntarily supported the government's campaign. Those which did not often faced sanctions. Andrei Babitsky, a Radio Liberty correspondent, was reporting from Chechnya without official accreditation when he was detained by Russian forces in mid-January and taken to Chernokozovo detention center, where guards beat him several times. In early February, the Russian government announced that Babitsky had been handed over to a group of Chechen rebels, in exchange for captured Russian soldiers. Several weeks later he resurfaced in Dagestan and was immediately arrested for carrying falsified identity papers. He was released in Moscow on February 29. A court hearing was still pending at the time of writing.

Media freedom was also under threat outside the Chechen context. On May 11, heavily armed commandos of the procuracy and federal security service raided the offices of Media Most, a media holding that owns Russia's independent television station NTV, radio Ekho Moskvy, and Segodnia newspaper, forcibly holding dozens of employee in the building a full day. The law enforcement officers eventually confiscated part of Media Most's records. Law enforcement agencies denied a political context but the heavy handedness with which the raid was carried out gave it the appearance of a warning to independent media. On June 13, Vladimir Gusinsky, president of Media Most, was arrested. He was released several days later after being charged with large-scale embezzlement. In late July, these charges were dropped when Gusinsky agreed to transfer control over Media Most to the state-owned gas giant Gazprom.

The clumsy response by officials to the sinking of a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, which resulted in the deaths of 118 sailors, provoked a wave of criticism in the media, directed against President Putin and other state officials. Non-state media pointed out inconsistencies in officials' accounts and questioned President Putin's decision not to interrupt his vacation. Putin responded aggressively, accusing the media of "lying" and "ruining Russia's army and fleet."

No measures were taken to combat rampant police torture or to reform the judicial system. Police continued to torture detainees in order to secure confessions, using methods like beatings, asphyxiation, electric shock, and suspension by the arms or legs, as well as psychological intimidation. Police also gave privileges to certain detainees to pressure others into confessing. Prosecutors used coerced confessions in court, often as the primary evidence of a defendant's guilt. The procuracy failed to investigate torture complaints promptly and adequately and they rarely led to formal criminal investigations. On October 11, the Moscow City Court stripped Sergei Pashin, an outspoken opponent of torture practices and a leading judge, of his status for criticizing a judgment of a colleague and giving out his work telephone number in a radio program.

On September 13, the Presidium of the Supreme Court dismissed the prosecution's appeal against the December 29, 1999, acquittal of environmentalist Alexander Nikitin. With that decision, the criminal case, in which Nikitin was accused of espionage for the Norwegian environmental organization Bellona, finally came to an end as the prosecution had no further appeal options.

2) Defending Human Rights

Human rights organizations working on Chechnya faced problems of access to Chechnya and to official information, and petty harassment. Despite oral assurances that Human Rights Watch would be granted access to Chechnya, this was not the case. Memorial, a leading Russian rights group, also continued to face difficulties working inside Chechnya. Human rights workers faced occasional harassment from police and the Federal Security Service (FSB). Numerous appeals by Human Rights Watch for information from the Russian authorities went unanswered.

Other human rights activists also faced occasional problems with authorities. For example, on August 28 masked police commandos stormed the office of a human rights organization, the Glasnost Foundation, without any apparent reason. The police carrying out the raid taunted Sergei Grigoriants, the head of the organization, with the knowledge that he was a former dissident who had spent time in prison for his political activities in Soviet times.

3) The Role of the International Community

United Nations

In December 1999, Human Rights Watch called on the Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry to investigate violations of the laws of war in Chechnya. The Security Council, however, never formally discussed Chechnya.

In late March, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson travelled to the area after an earlier refusal of her request for a visit sparked an international outcry. Robinson became the first senior international official to acknowledge receiving evidence of summary executions, torture, and rape. Although Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov at the end of the trip told Robinson she was welcome to visit Chechnya again in a few months, a formal invitation had not yet been extended at the time of writing.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution criticizing Russia for violations of human rights in Chechnya-the first time a resolution was adopted regarding a permanent member of the Security Council. The resolution, among other things, called on the Russian government to establish "according to recognized international standards" a national commission of inquiry and mandated five special mechanisms of the Human Rights Commission to visit Chechnya and report to the commission and the General Assembly. At the time of the General Assembly session in the fall, none of the special mechanisms had been able to visit. The Russian failure to implement the resolution was raised at a one-day commission session in September but no public record of the discussion was issued.

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

At the November 1999 Istanbul summit, OSCE member states, including Russia, confirmed the mandate of the OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya. The Russian government, however, subsequently refused to allow the Assistance Group to function in Ingushetia and created administrative obstacles to its return to Chechnya. As a result, the Assistance Group was unable to fulfill its functions in a meaningful way.

In other OSCE developments, its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) provided ad hoc technical and training assistance to the staff of Kalamanov's office. The office did not respond to evidence of widespread fraud during the March presidential elections, other than to characterize the elections as "a benchmark in the ongoing evolution of the Russian Federation's emergence as a representative democracy."

Council of Europe

A number of Council of Europe delegations visited the North Caucasus to assess the situation, including the European commissioner for human rights, members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the Committee for the Prevention of Torture.

Chechnya figured prominently on the agenda of all Parliamentary Assembly sessions in 2000. After its January recommendations went unheeded, a majority of parliamentarians voted in April to strip Russia's parliamentary delegation of its voting rights. The assembly also recommended that member states file an interstate complaint against Russia with the European Court of Human Rights and that the Committee of Ministers start proceedings to exclude Russia from the Council of Europe.

The Committee of Ministers brushed aside all of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Assembly without serious discussion and said that Russia's response to international pressure was satisfactory.

The secretary general of the Council of Europe invoked a seldom used mechanism to require Russia to explain the application of the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to the conflict. When Russia's response was unsatisfactory, the secretary general deferred further action to the Committee of Ministers, which remained silent.

The Council of Europe sent three experts to the office of Vladimir Kalamanov starting in June. Although the presence of these experts no doubt contributed to the efficiency of the office, the experts were not in a position to make a meaningful contribution to the accountability process.

European Union

In the early months of the war, the European Union (E.U.) under the Finnish presidency took a fairly tough stance on Russia, consistently criticizing its military operation and abuses and freezing some technical assistance funds. After Boris Yeltsin resigned as president and it became apparent that Vladimir Putin would become Russia's next president, the E.U. toned down its criticism and backed away from any tougher action.

To its credit, the E.U. introduced the resolution on Chechnya at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. However, the E.U. itself undermined the importance of this step. As Russia openly defied all international criticism and refused to recognize or implement the resolution, the E.U. and its member states started a series of bilateral and multilateral summit talks to establish good relations with Russia's new president.

E.U. member states refused to take Russia to the European Court of Human Rights over abuses in Chechnya. In response to an appeal from more than thirty leading human rights and humanitarian NGOs, the E.U. claimed that such a step was unnecessary as Russia was makingprogress toward accountability. The E.U. also refused to use political and economic levers, such as suspending the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement or support for international lending, to convince Russia to change its conduct in Chechnya.

In sharp contrast to its conduct in Kosovo in 1999, the E.U. failed to gather information independently on abuses in Chechnya. No E.U. diplomats visited Chechnya or even Ingushetia independently to interview victims of human rights abuses, although a December 1999 declaration of the E.U. foreign ministers requested that they do so.

United States

The United States limited itself to a rhetorical response to the violations in Chechnya. It criticised Russia consistently over its actions in Chechnya but was unwilling to use any stronger political or economic levers. The United States was unwilling to suspend its support for international lending to Russia or to use bilateral economic assistance to convince Russia to change its conduct. It actively pursued good relations with Putin despite the war. At times, even the rhetoric was flawed. Testifying before Congress in May, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott went to great lengths to avoid using the words "war crimes" to describe the serious violations of humanitarian law that Russian forces have committed in Chechnya.

The United States also failed to collect first hand information independently on abuses by regularly sending diplomats to the region.

Financial Institutions

The World Bank did not condition disbursement of loans to Russia on its actions in Chechnya, releasing U.S. $450 million in structural adjustment loan payments to Russia since the outbreak of the conflict in 1999. Linked to various industrial reforms, these payments went directly to the Russian government for unfettered general budgetary spending. Bank officials stated that they would monitor the impact of the conflict but this scrutiny was apparently limited to economic concerns.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing for Russia remained frozen, officially because of the slow pace of economic reforms, but Russian officials claimed the IMF decision was linked to the Chechnya conflict.

Source: Human Rights Watch