The Month in Brief - June 2005June 2
Chechen guerrilla commander Dokka Umarov was appointed Vice-President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, according to information published by the Chechenpress website on June 16.
Akhmad-Khadzhi Shamayev, ex-mufti of the Chechen Republic, was appointed vice-chairman of the Council of Muftis of the Russian Federation and charged with liasoning with religious organizations of the Northern Caucasus.
June 2-5
"The Days of Culture of the Chechen Republic" took place in Moscow.
June 4
Masked armed people, allegedly members of the Moscow-backed Chechen forces, raided Borozdinovskaya, a village located in northeastern Chechnya and inhabited mostly by ethnic Avars, killing one elderly man and abducting 11 others.
June 7
The Moscow-backed leadership of the Chechen Republic decided to move the remains of soldiers and civilians killed during the two Chechen wars from spontaneous burial places to regular cemeteries.
June 7-9
Women of the "Beslan Mothers" committee staged a hunger strike in the North Ossetian capital of Vladikavkaz against the June 7 appointment of Taymuraz Mamsurov, chairman of the local parliament, as the republic's new president.
June 8
Residents of the Borozdinovskaya village blocked the federal road "Kavkaz" in protest against the June 4 raid on their village. They repeated their protest in the following days.
June 9
Seven policemen from the Russian region of Tver deployed in Chechnya were killed when Chechen guerrillas ambushed their vehicle on the Kurchaloy-Avtury road.
June 10
Additional federal and local Interior Ministry forces are being deployed in Dagestan these days to take preventative measures, an unnamed source in the local Interior Ministry confirmed to the Russian news agency Interfax.
June 12
A bomb derailed the Grozny-Moscow passenger train some 150 kilometers south of the Russian capital. Dozens of people were injured, but only eight hospitalized.
June 14
The Norwegian Refugee Council released a report according to which grave human rights abuses continue with almost impunity in Chechnya and Chechens seeking refuge in other parts of the Russian Federation are not granted the necessary protection. The report also warns against forced or mandatory return of Chechen asylum seekers to Russia.
Speaking on local television about kidnappings, Vice-Premier of the Moscow-backed Chechen government Ramzan Kadyrov said that "anyone who kidnaps or takes away a person without relevant authorization" would be declared "his blood enemy".
June 15
Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, chairman of the Moscow-backed Chechen government's committee for the constitutional rights of citizens, stated that the authorities register 52 mass graves in the republic.
Lyoma Khasuyev, the Chechen Republic’s human rights ombudsman, announced that local human rights commissioners would be appointed in every Chechen district and their assistants in every Chechen village. He also stated that he would stop cooperating with the renowned Russian human rights organization Memorial.
Murat Zyazikov, the incumbent President of Ingushetiya, was approved for a second term of office by the republic's parliament.
June 16
The Avar residents of the Borozdinovskaya village started leaving en masse for Dagestan after they lost trust in the Chechen authorities following the June 4 raid.
June 20-22
Several hundred members of the so-called Security Service under the command of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed Vice-Premier of the Chechen Republic, were again deployed in the district town of Vedeno, reported the Society of the Russian-Chechen Friendship.
June 22
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) passed a resolution urging the Russian authorities, among other things, to put an immediate end to the ongoing "disappearances", torture, detentions in illegal and secret detention facilities, and unlawful killings as well as to prosecute any attempt to intimidate and harass human rights activists and applicants to the European Court of Human Rights.
June 23
Over 200 hundred people demonstrated in Strasbourg against the war in Chechnya.
June 27
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed First Vice-Premier of the Chechen Republic, was appointed the head of the commission in charge of solving the situation around the Borozdinovskaya village
A contract soldier serving in the special Chechen battalion Vostok of the Russian Defence Ministry was found dead with shots in his head in the village of Kurdyukovskaya in the Shyolkovsky district.
June 28
Magomed-Zagid Varisov, political analyst, journalist and director of the Dagestani Center for Strategic Initiatives and Political Technologies, was killed in a contract-style murder in the capital of Makhachkala.
June 29-30
Borozdinovskaya residents left the refugee camp Nadezhda, located near the Dagestani town of Kizlyar, for their village, following talks with the Moscow-backed Chechen politician Ramzan Kadyrov and Dagestani parliamentary deputy Sagid Murtazaliyev.
June 30
In an interview for the Chechen section of Radio Svoboda, Aslan Maskhadov's successor Abdul-Khalim Sadullayev stated that the leadership of the Chechen resistance do plan "large-scale military operations".
A new mosque was opened in Gudermes, Chechnya's second largest town, and proclaimed to be the republic's main mosque.
Compiled by Prague Watchdog. Along with these monthly summaries, we also publish weekly summaries, distributing them on Mondays to the subscribers of our weekly newsletter. (T/B) |
