The Memorial’s statistics differ from official data, acknowledged Chechnya’s Prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov.
Photo: Yury Tutov
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Chechen Prosecutors Spot Upward Distortion
While in the Troekurovskoe Cemetery the mourners were paying the last respect to prominent reporter Anna Politkovksaya, who had been killed past Saturday, the right advocates held a news conference, speaking mostly about the growth of crimes in Chechnya and the violence horror there. Of interest is that their statistics notably differ from official data.
The report of Shamil Tangiyev, who is the chief of Grozny branch of Memorial, was in the limelight at the yesterday’s meeting of right advocates held in the Independent News Center.
The nation of Chechnya is in constant horror of expecting violence, which is even worse than the violence itself, Tangiyev said, making clear that in the given context horror means continuous growth in crimes – murders, abductions and harassment.
But not militants commit the crimes, Tangiyev emphasized with reference to Anna Politkovskaya, who had blamed over 85 percent of all abductions in Chechnya on divisions subordinate to Chechnya’s PM Ramzan Kadyrov.
“The abductions continue,” Tangiyev specified. “We have registered 125 abductions and 47 murders in Chechnya. But the data don’t reach official statistics, as people fear to report abduction or murder of their relatives nowadays.”
Indeed, the Memorial’s statistics differ from official data. “Prosecutor’s office of the republic initiated about 30 abduction cases in 10 months of this year,” said Chechnya’s Prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov, adding “there were more than 150 of them past year.” The difference in statistics roots in different approaches to abductions. “Right advocates think abduction nearly any disappearance of a person.
In sober fact, most of abducted prove to have gone somewhere themselves without informing the relatives, or for instance, have been detained by police in the neighboring region,” the prosecutor explained.
The number of cases when the police have gone beyond the authority (tortures during interrogation) hasn’t grown either, according to the prosecutor. “Earlier, the criminal cases against the police under Clause 286 of the Criminal Code weren’t actually initiated in the republic. So, there was nothing to compare for right advocates. This year, we have initiated around 10 cases. But the list includes crimes that police committed not only this year but also in the previous years,” Kuznetsov said.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 11, 2006
|
|
|
