http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,2294,332736%255E401,00.html Evidence mounts on tortured Chechens From ANDREW KRAMER of AP 18feb00 MALGOBEK, Russia: Chechens trying to leave their war-ravaged republic are being tortured in Russian detention camps and subjected to severe beatings, rapes and other brutality, refugees and human rights groups said today. The allegations come on the heels of other complaints of human rights abuses in the Russian offensive in Chechnya, including reports of summary executions of civilians in Grozny, the Chechen capital. Russian officials deny the allegations, but Chechens who have fled into neighbouring republics tell similar, grisly accounts of their detention in camps that Russia says it set up to filter out rebels who are trying to escape disguised as civilians. A 21-year-old Chechen, lying in pain in a bed in Malgobek in neighbouring North Ossetia, said his ordeal began January 22 when police dragged him off a bus of refugees and took him to a camp in the Chechen village of Chernokozovo. The man, who asked that he be identified only by his first name, Ruslan, said he was forced to run a gantlet of masked policemen swinging truncheons, had his clothes torn off and was forced to stand naked in a cold storage room. "I asked what they were detaining me for, but they didn't answer,'' he said. He was released only after his mother paid a bribe to the camp directors, he said. At least three such camps are operating, according to Peter Bouckaert, a researcher for the Human Rights Watch group in the region. "Russia appears to have declared any Chechen male to be a suspected rebel, subject to arbitrary arrest and brutal treatment,'' he said. The allegations were echoed by the World Organisation Against Torture, which issued a statement in Geneva on Thursday saying, "We cannot ignore that the filtration camps are indeed concentration camps where Russian soldiers are committing the worst atrocities, in all impunity, against their prisoners.'' In Washington, US State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said Thursday that "Russia has a clear obligation to investigate the numerous credible reports of civilian killings and alleged misconduct by its soldiers promptly.'' Sergei Yastrzhembsky, who is acting President Vladimir Putin's aide for Chechnya information, on Thursday reiterated denials of torture at Chernokozovo. The allegations are "the No. 1 topic in the information war the Western mass media have unleashed,'' he said on Russia's ORT television. "Routine work like in any other detention centre is going on there.'' He said that European Union observers would be allowed into the camp to see the situation for themselves, but gave no date of a possible visit. The Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, is due to arrive in Moscow on Feb. 24, but his office could give no details of the trip. Ruslan, the refugee, told of a routine of torment, in which detainees were often beaten in a hallway in the early morning, their cries awakening others in their cells. Ruslan said guards told him "don't look me in the eyes, you black face,'' and then one hit him in the spine with a hammer. He says he has not been able to stand erect since then. An investigator accused him of fighting on the side of the Islamic rebel groups that have battled Russian soldiers during the six-month war and demanded names and addresses of rebels, Ruslan said. "Those who signed confessions, or said they could identify other men who were fighters, did not come back to the cells,'' according to another refugee who said he had also been at Chernokozovo. The refugee, Eli, said a masked policeman once opened a peephole to the cell and said, ``Who wants a smoke?'' When a prisoner approached the hole, the guard sprayed tear gas into the cell and those inside reeled and were racked by coughs for minutes, Eli said. Eli said a man from their cell was called out and he heard guards rape him. Then a guard said he should answer to a woman's name, Fatima. Other detainees described similar acts. After this event, when guards rapped on the cell door with a truncheon, the detainees were to call out the number of people in the cell as ``fifteen men and one woman,'' said Eli. Yastrzhembsky said Thursday there are 16 women among the 235 people currently held in Chernokozovo. But he rejected a report by the French newspaper Le Monde that said there were children in the camp. In a move possibly aimed at deflecting criticism of Russia's human rights record in Chechnya, Putin on Thursday appointed Federal Migration Service head Vladimir Kalamanov as his special representative on human and civil rights in Chechnya, the Interfax news agency said. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
