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Amnesty International Report 2004 - Russian Federation

Covering events from January - December 2003

Russian security forces continued to enjoy almost total impunity for serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed in the ongoing conflict in the Chechen Republic (Chechnya). Chechen forces loyal to the pro-Moscow administration of Akhmad Kadyrov also committed serious human rights abuses as did Chechen fighters opposed to Russian rule. An increasing number of bomb attacks took place, not only in Chechnya itself, but in other parts of the Russian Federation. There were reports that the military raids which spread so much fear in the civilian population of Chechnya were now taking place in neighbouring Ingushetia, with the participation of Russian federal troops as well as pro-Moscow Chechen security forces. Tens of thousands of internally displaced Chechens remained in Ingushetia and were reportedly subjected to intense pressure from the authorities to return home. Elsewhere in the Russian Federation there were continuing reports of torture and ill-treatment. Conditions in pre-trial detention centres and prisons were often cruel, inhuman and degrading. Members of ethnic minorities faced widespread discrimination. Those responsible for racist attacks were rarely brought to justice. Violence in the home continued to claim the lives of thousands of women.

Background

The elections to the State Duma on 7 December were criticized by international observers as failing to meet international standards. There were allegations of vote rigging, and the state-controlled media heavily favoured the pro-Kremlin United Russia party during the campaign. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) expressed serious concerns regarding the lack of media independence and stated that "considerable pressure was exerted on journalists, which restricted information available to voters." It also criticized some politicians for making racist and xenophobic statements.

On 25 October, business magnate Mikhail Khodorkovskii was arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion. The Russian human rights community alleged that his case was politically motivated, as Mikhail Khodorkovskii supported political parties that were in opposition to the Kremlin and reportedly considered running for President in 2008.

In March, a new Constitution was approved by referendum in Chechnya amid allegations of voting irregularities. In October, Akhmad Kadyrov was elected president of the Chechen Republic in an election criticized by human rights campaigners and foreign governments.

On 6 June, the State Duma approved a draft decree declaring an amnesty for crimes committed in Chechnya. Critics, including AI, warned that the amnesty decree was seriously flawed.

Chechen conflict

Both Russian armed forces and Chechen fighters continued to commit serious abuses and in some respects the situation deteriorated in the aftermath of the referendum. There were reports that violations committed by federal troops and local police against Chechen civilians had spread across the border to neighbouring Ingushetia where tens of thousands of Chechens had sought refuge.

Violations by federal forces and Chechen police

Large-scale military raids (zachistki) appeared to decrease in 2003. However, targeted operations in which specific houses or individuals were singled out by Russian federal troops and pro-Moscow Chechen police were reported. Such operations were routinely accompanied by serious human rights violations, and large numbers of Chechens – particularly men and boys – were killed or "disappeared". Abuses reported included extrajudicial executions, "disappearances" and torture, including rape; such abuses can constitute war crimes.

• Rizvan Yaragevich Appazov was detained by Russian federal soldiers in the Vedeno region of Chechnya on 5 May. Russian soldiers stopped the bus in which he was travelling at a military checkpoint near his home village, Elistanzhi. The soldiers began checking passengers' passports. As soon as they found Rizvan Yaragevich Appazov, they stopped their checks and forced him off the bus. He was reportedly taken to a Russian army barracks on the site of a former asphalt factory. His whereabouts remained unknown at the end of the year. No reason was given for his detention. In 2001, Rizvan Yaragevich Appazov's brother had also been detained by Russian federal soldiers as he herded cattle. His fate also remained unknown at the end of 2003.

• On 21 May, six people were reportedly killed in an early morning raid on a number of houses in the Kalinovskaya settlement near one of the main military bases in Chechnya. According to eyewitnesses, a group of 15 armed men in camouflage uniforms entered a house where they shot and killed Zura Bitieva; her husband, Ramzan Iduyev; their son, Idris Iduyev; and Zura Bitieva's brother, Abubakar Bitiev. Only a one-year-old child survived the attack. Zura Bitieva had been an outspoken critic of the behaviour of federal troops and had submitted an application to the European Court of Human Rights.

Military raids spread to Ingushetia

About 70,000 internally displaced Chechens remained in Ingushetia, either in tent camps, spontaneous settlements or private homes. The situation continued to be tense. Local and federal authorities put pressure on displaced people to return to Chechnya and there were reports of raids across the border into Ingushetia, where Chechen settlements as well as Ingush villages were targeted. There were reports of arbitrary arrest and detention, ill-treatment and looting during such operations.

• On the evening of 10 June, a car carrying three members of the Zabiev family came under heavy fire. They were on their way home from their potato field to Ghalashki village, Ingushetia. Tamara Zabieva, aged 65, was seriously wounded, and her son Ali Zabiev ran for help, leaving his brother, Umar Zabiev, with their mother. When Ali Zabiev returned later with other relatives and representatives of the local police, they managed to find Tamara Zabieva and take her to a hospital, but Umar Zabiev could not be found. Two days later, his body was found; among the injuries he had sustained were fractures, bruises and gunshot wounds. There were reports of evidence suggesting the involvement of federal troops in the attack.

Impunity

Prosecutions for serious human rights violations by federal troops remained few and far between. The majority of investigations appeared to be superficial and inconclusive.

• On 25 July, Colonel Yuri Budanov was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Kheda Kungaeva and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Eighteen-year-old Kheda Kungaeva had been abducted from her home in Chechnya in March 2000. The conviction followed an appeal against a previous decision on 31 December 2002 by the North Caucasus Military Court that Yuri Budanov was not criminally responsible for the murder. He had confessed to killing Kheda Kungaeva, but his lawyers claimed that he did so in a state of "temporary insanity".

Chechnya and the international community

During its January session the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) deplored the climate of impunity in Chechnya.

In January, the European Court of Human Rights registered and declared admissible six cases related to alleged human rights violations in the Chechen Republic.

In a major blow to the protection of human rights in the Russian Federation, a draft resolution on the Chechen Republic was defeated at the UN Commission for Human Rights for the second year in a row.

The two summits between the European Union and Russia on 31 May and 7 November failed to produce any positive developments on the question of human rights in the Chechen Republic.

In June the Russian government authorized the publication of one of the reports of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture on its visit to the Russian Federation. In July the Committee issued a second public statement highlighting the continued resort to torture and other forms of ill-treatment by members of law enforcement agencies and federal forces and the largely unproductive action taken to bring to justice those responsible. The Committee identified measures which the Russian Federation authorities should take, including a formal statement from the highest political level denouncing ill-treatment by members of the federal forces and law enforcement agencies in the Chechen Republic. The measures had not been implemented by the end of the year.

On 7 November, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed its deep concern about "continuing substantiated reports of human rights violations in the Chechen Republic, including extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture, including rape".

Akhmed Zakayev

On 13 November, a British court declined the request of the Russian authorities for the extradition of Chechen envoy Akhmed Zakayev on the grounds that his ethnicity and political beliefs made it likely that he would be tortured if returned to the Russian Federation. During the court hearings, experts and witnesses for the defence gave evidence of widespread torture of inmates in Russian pre-trial detention centres and prisons.

Human rights abuses by Chechen fighters

Chechen fighters continued to commit serious human rights abuses. They reportedly targeted civilian members of the pro-Moscow administration, and were allegedly responsible for a number of bombings that caused indiscriminate harm to civilians.

• On 14 May, a woman blew herself up in the middle of a crowd of several thousand people attending a Muslim religious celebration in the village of Ilishkan-Yurt, east of Grozny. At least 18 people were killed and 145 wounded. The attack was apparently aimed at the leader of the pro-Moscow Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov. The following week, the leader of a Chechen armed group, Shamil Basaev, claimed responsibility on a website for this and other bombings and warned that more attacks would follow.

Bomb attacks

Bomb attacks took place throughout the Russian Federation with increasing frequency during 2003. They were often indiscriminate and resulted in a large number of civilian casualties. Such attacks included a car bomb explosion in Znamenskoye, Chechnya, in May; two suicide bomb attacks at the Tushino airfield rock concert in Moscow in July; a car bomb blast at the military hospital in Mozdok, Republic of Dagestan, in August; and an explosion on a commuter train near Yessentuki, Stavropol Territory, in December. It was alleged that these attacks were related to the conflict in Chechnya.

Racially and ethnically motivated discrimination and violence

As part of its worldwide campaign against human rights abuses in the Russian Federation, AI continued to highlight abuses faced by members of ethnic minorities. These included arbitrary detention and ill-treatment; the denial of citizenship, and therefore associated rights and benefits, on grounds of race; and racist attacks against asylum-seekers and refugees.

Thousands of Meskhetians living in Krasnodar Territory continued to be refused Russian citizenship on grounds of ethnicity. Meskhetians, most of whom are Muslims, were forcibly relocated from southwest Georgia in 1944 by the former Soviet regime. As Soviet citizens residing in the Russian Federation at the time the Law of Citizenship came into force in 1992, they are entitled to Russian Federation citizenship. The result of the authorities' failure to enforce this right was discrimination in almost every aspect of daily life including education, employment and health care.

Ethnically motivated violence

Racist attacks were widespread, although many were not reported to the police. Victims feared further abuse and police generally failed to pursue allegations of racist violence adequately.

• Atish Ramgoolam, an 18-year-old medical student from Mauritius, died in February from injuries sustained during a vicious assault by a group of young "skinheads" in St Petersburg. His death shocked and frightened the hundreds of other foreign students at the Mechnikov Medical Academy who were routinely subjected to racist abuse by local youths. Prior to the attack on Atish Ramgoolam, the authorities had reportedly failed to address allegations of such abuse. Three youths were arrested in connection with the killing.

• On 8 April a group of between 10 and 15 young men were reported to have viciously attacked Kelvin Benson Sinkala, a student from Zambia, in the city of Vladimir. He received a large number of stab wounds and spent two and a half weeks in hospital. On the day of the attack, three suspects were arrested, but they were subsequently released.

The anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler was again marked by an escalation of racially motivated harassment and violence in a number of Russian cities, although levels were down on previous years.

• On 25 April a group of 50-60 youths, some of them reportedly armed with chains, knuckle-dusters and other weapons, carried out a series of racially motivated attacks in Krasnodar Territory. They attacked nightclubs in the villages of Kholmskii and Akhtyrskii where they singled out people who appeared to originate from the Caucasus. Some of the victims were beaten unconscious. In total, 30 people were reported to have been injured during the attacks and six were hospitalized. Following pressure from AI and local non-governmental organizations, news of the incident reached the national press, and on 29 April a criminal investigation was opened into the Kholmskii attack. The investigation was continuing at the end of the year.

Human rights defenders

The School of Peace, a prominent Russian non-governmental organization, was threatened with imminent closure by the authorities of Krasnodar Territory in August as a result of its activities in defence of ethnic minority rights. In recent years the School of Peace has come under considerable pressure from the authorities to stop its campaigning on behalf of the Meskhetian minority. Three other non-governmental organizations in Krasnodar Territory were also subjected to harassment from the regional authorities and through the state-controlled media.

Parliamentarian assassinated

Member of Parliament Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead in April. He had been an outspoken opponent of both conflicts in Chechnya and had consistently demanded an independent investigation into the apartment bombings in September 1999 that served as one of the grounds for Russian Federation forces to re-enter Chechnya. He was the 10th Russian parliamentarian to be murdered during the past decade; none of the murders had been solved by the end of 2003.

Torture and ill-treatment

The use of torture and ill-treatment by police to extract confessions from detainees was virtually routine. The failure to investigate allegations of torture thoroughly and to bring the perpetrators to justice contributed to a climate of impunity.

• On 27 January the official investigation into the alleged torture and ill-treatment of Andrei Osenchugov and Aleksei Shishkin, two 17-year-old youths serving eight-year sentences for robbery, was closed. Both alleged that they were tortured while in pre-trial detention in early 2002. Although there was evidence that the teenagers were ill-treated by officers at the pre-trial detention centre, the case was closed because both boys withdrew their statements. Andrei Osenchugov and Aleksei Shishkin were reportedly both put under severe pressure by prison staff to retract their accusations. Following international pressure from AI and other human rights groups, the investigation was reportedly reopened in August 2003. At around the same time, AI received information that the teenagers were being intimidated in order to force the closure of the case.

Although the overall number of prisoners in the Russian Federation decreased in 2003, prisons continued to be overcrowded, creating conditions which facilitated the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. Conditions in many pre-trial detention facilities were so poor that they amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Conditions for prisoners serving life sentences remained so harsh that they amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and in some cases possibly torture. Every aspect of their imprisonment was designed to ensure their isolation from the outside world and other prisoners. Parliamentarians and human rights activists described some of these prison colonies as needlessly restrictive and others as downright humiliating.

Violence against women

Violence in the home continued to claim the lives of thousands of women and to result in serious injuries to tens of thousands more. Perpetrators were rarely brought to justice, in part as a result of the reluctance of the police to intervene in what they perceived as a private matter. The fact that the Russian Federation had no law specifically addressing domestic violence further reinforced this tendency. In some regions improvements were reported following initiatives by local women's organizations to establish cooperation with local government structures.

In the armed conflict in the Chechen Republic women continued to suffer a wide range of abuses.

Every year, thousands of Russian women are reportedly trafficked to as many as 50 countries around the world for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Insufficient legislation makes it difficult to prosecute traffickers effectively. The Russian government acknowledged this problem and the State Duma was working on a draft law on trafficking at the end of the year.

Prisoner of conscience released

Journalist and environmentalist Grigory Pasko was released on parole in January. He had been sentenced in December 2001 to four years' imprisonment on charges of misuse of office. While welcoming his release, AI continued to insist that his conviction must be quashed. Grigory Pasko had filmed a Russian navy tanker dumping radioactive waste and ammunition into the Sea of Japan. He also reported on corruption in the navy. A decision by the European Court of Human Rights on Grigory Pasko's case was not expected until 2005.

AI country Visits

AI delegates visited the Russian Federation in January, March, April, May, September, October and December. Two reports were launched in Moscow – on 19 March and 2 October respectively – as part of AI's worldwide campaign on human rights in the Russian Federation.