Chancellor Merkel meets Presidents Chirac and Putin (23.09.2006)

Chancellor Angela Merkel must in her talks with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, this Saturday in France bring up the human rights situation in Chechnya, which is still catastrophic. For this reason the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has written an extensive letter to the Chancellor on the frightening situation of the civilian population in the North Caucasus. Merkel must put it to Putin that he should no longer protect the present Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov because his militia is responsible for about 75 percent of the serious human rights violations in Chechnya.

Russian and Chechnyan rulers declare that the position in Chechnya has become stable. But the facts speak against this, says the letter of the GfbV. According to information from the organisation Memorial - which however can only observe one quarter of the area of Chechnya - in the first months of 2006 47 persons were killed in Chechnya, among them 18 civilians, eleven members of various armed services and eight members of Chechnyan armed groups. Ten corpses could not be identified.

Civilians are abducted almost every day. Information on the circumstances of the abductions can only be got with difficulty since the relatives of those missing tend increasingly to try to obtain release through their own contacts to the militia, secret service or military. Since Ramsan Kadyrov took office in 2004 the persecution of presumed Chechnyan fighters has increased considerably. Relatives are often arrested arbitrarilyand used as hostages.. Families with some wealth are persecuted by local militia and the authorities, and their relatives abducted in order to extort money. Others who are in danger these days are former military and militia, who are under constant observation and who themselves or members of their families are victims of arrest.

The criminals are hardly ever prosecuted. According to the office of the public prosecutor in Chechnya 1,949 cases of abduction were brought between 1999 and 1st April 2006. 31 were closed for various reasons, while 1,697 cases were discontinued because it was not possible to identify the abductors.

It has not been possible to provide medical care for the IDPs (internally displaced persons) in Chechnya. Many of their children have not been able on account of the long and difficult ways to go to school. There is a lack of teaching materials and school books. On 13th July 2006 the Deputy Director of the WHO (World Health Organisation) of the UNO in Russia, Koryun Alaverjan, reported that the food supplies available for the Chechnyan IDPs would only last for three more months. The News Service of the UNO declares that the WHO needs 22 million US dollars in order to supply some 250,000 Chechnyans with urgently needed food. Only 28% of this sum has so far been obtained.