"Welcome to Hell": Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Extortion in Chechnya

Human Rights Watch, "Welcome to Hell": Arbitrary Detention, Torture, and Extortion in Chechnya, 253X, 1 October 2000, https://www.refworld.org/reference/countryrep/hrw/2000/en/26448 [accessed 19 April 2024]
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APPENDIX 1: KNOWN PLACES OF DETENTION IN CHECHNYA

In most cases, detainees did not know the legal status of the institution where they were detained. Information on the official function and the authorities responsible for the following confirmed places of detention in most of the cases below comes from the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). 

Pre-trial detention Facilities (Sledstvennyi izoliator or SIZO), under the authority of the Ministry of Justice:

  • Grozny (SIZO)* 
  • Chernokozovo (SIZO)*+
  • Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia) (SIZO)*+
  • Pyatigorsk (Stavropol territory) (likely Belyi Lebed, SIZO)*+
  • Stavropol (SIZO) (Stavropol territory)
  • Territory Hospital at Colony No. 3, Georgievsk (Stavropol Territory)+
Temporary detention facilities (Izoliator vremennogo soderzhaniia or IVS), under the authority of the Ministry of Internal Affairs:
  • Chervlyonnaya Station (according to Russian authorities, this facility was closed in April, 2000)* 
  • Naurskiy District Department of Internal Affairs* 
  • Shali District Department of Internal Affairs* 
  • Temporary Internal Affairs Department of Grozny Selsky District (Tolstoy Yurt)* 
  • Oktyabrskyi District Temporary Department of Internal Affairs, Grozny+ 
  • Zavodskyi District Temporary Department of Internal Affairs, Grozny+
  • Temporary Department of Internal Affairs, Gudermes+
  • Khankala Military Base of the Allied Group of Armed Forces (FSB and MVD operate temporary holding facilities in Khankala)+
  • Temporary Department of Internal Affairs, Shelkovskaya+ 
  • Urus-Martan; (there are three temporary holding facilities in Urus-Martan: FSB, and the district and regional MVD; at least one of them is in the Internat boarding school)+
  • Mozdok District Department of Internal Affairs (North Ossetia)* 
Places of Detention whose status is unknown to Human Rights Watch:
  • Former holding facility, Goryacheistochnenskoye (Tolstoy Yurt) (according to inteviewees, this facility was closed in mid-February, 2000; it was empty when visited by the CPT on its first visit at the end of February)*
  • Solyonaia Balka military base (Grozny) (at least during January, 2000)
  • Znamenskoye police station (at least during January and February, 2000)
  • Ersenoi military base (at least during April and May, 2000)
  • Achkhoi Martan police station
* visited by the CPT on its March 4 to 26 February, 2000 trip to the North Caucasus.

+visited by the CPT on its April 20 to 27, 2000 trip to the North Caucasus.

Comments:
This report details the cycle of torture and extortion faced by thousands of Chechens whom Russian forces have detained in Chechnya. The rights group called on European states to file a case against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights, for these and other abuses during the war in Chechnya.

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