Group condemns Chechen abductions

MOSCOW – Widespread kidnappings of civilians in Chechnya, most of them allegedly by government forces, have reached the level of a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

In France, Chechnya’s Moscow-backed president, Alu Alkhanov, acknowledged human rights abuses in Chechnya but said “the situation has been improving” and that reports of widespread kidnappings in the breakaway province were exaggerated.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch issued its report as the Council of Europe hosted talks on Chechnya’s future in Strasbourg, France. The council is Europe’s top human rights watchdog.

The report said thousands of people have vanished in Chechnya since 1999, the start of the latest conflict between Russian forces and separatists. The report documented several dozen new cases of “disappearances” that it said had occurred mostly within recent months.

“Thousands of people have ‘disappeared’ in Chechnya since 1999, with the full knowledge of the Russian authorities,” said Rachel Denber, acting executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia Division. “Witnesses now tell us that the atmosphere of utter arbitrariness and intimidation is ‘worse than a war.’ “

Human Rights Watch also condemned the European Union for failing to introduce a resolution on Chechnya this year at the 53-nation U.N Commission on Human Rights, which is now in session in Geneva. In 2000 and 2001, the U.N. commission passed resolutions calling on the Russian government to stop abuses in Chechnya.

Human Rights Watch cited an estimate by local human rights groups that 3,000-5,000 people have gone missing since the beginning of the current conflict in 1999, the second in a decade.

Human rights defenders have accused Russian security forces and their pro-Moscow Chechen allies of widespread abuses against civilians in Chechnya, including kidnapping, torture and extrajudicial killings.

Chechen rebels have mounted a growing number of terrorist acts, culminating in September’s seizure of 1,000 hostages at a school in southern Russia, which ended in the death of 330 people – about half of them children.

At the Council of Europe’s Strasbourg meeting, Alkhanov said, “We do admit that human rights and legal abuse is still a reality in Chechnya and that the state of affairs in the social and political sphere is not as good as it should be.

“At the same time … the republic’s leadership has been working really hard to improve the situation. And the situation has been improving.”