Chechnyan human rights worker in Strassburg risks his life for peace

The chairperson of the Chechnyan human rights organisation "For Peace and Human Rights” in Strassburg exile, Said Emin Ibragimov, is after 26 days on hunger-strike in imminent danger of death. The purpose of his campaign is according to the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) to force the European Parliament and the Council of Europe to take more concrete steps for peace in Chechnya.

"Ibragimov will not break off his hunger-strike until he has had a reply to his call for peace” said the GfbV expert for the states of the Russian Federation, Sarah Reinke, on Wednesday. The GfbV tried without success to bring the human rights worker to take food again. Ibragimov has on various occasions staged spectacular campaigns – like a peace march from Brussels to Strassburg last summer or demonstrations in front of the building of the Parliamentary Committee of the Council of Europe – to draw attention to the continuing war in Chechnya.

His hunger-strike has disturbed Chechnyans and Chechnyan activists in many countries, said Reinke. "They are all calling on him to break off his strike.” The GfbV approached the Human Rights Commissar of the Parliamentary Committee of the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, with the request to receive Said-Emin Ibragimov for a talk.

Mr Ibragimov is hoping that his campaign will wake the interest of the media to the fate of his fellow-countrymen in Chechnya. We shall be glad to provide the contact with him.