Informing humanitarians worldwide 24/7 — a service provided by UN OCHA

Russia

Chechnya - The week in brief: 21- 27 May 2007

May 21- The Regnum news agency reported that the Public Chamber of the Chechen Republic had supported the Chechen human rights commissioner Nurdi Nukhazhiyev's demand of May 16 for criminal charges to be brought against Chechnya's public prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov.

May 22- British police said it would charge Russian citizen Andrei Lugovoi with the murder of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko and would seek his extradition from Russia.

May 23- In its annual report, Amnesty International said summary executions, torture, enforced disappearances and abductions continued in the Northern Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya, during 2006. Also, people seeking justice faced intimidation and death threats, the human rights organizationsaid.

May 23- Several hundred people took part in two protest rallies in the centre of Vienna against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Chechnya.

May 23-24 - Chechen student Gilani Atayev was killed and dozens of other people wounded in an overnight clash involving over 100 people, mostly Russians and Chechens, that took place in the South Russian city of Stavropol.

May 24- Sergei Stepashin, head of Russia's national audit office, the Accounts Chamber, said in Grozny that an absence of financing and a lack of proper coordination in the restoration of buildings and property is leading to an inefficient use of public resources, but at the same time praised the progress of construction and reconstruction work and the revival of the Chechen economy.

May 24- The Russian Prosecutor General's office announced that a criminal group partly consisting of police officers headed by Ruslan Asuyev had been charged with and partly already sentenced for murders, abductions and assaults on civilians they allegedly committed both for money and promotion within the service.

May 27- Mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni said that the city would soon be dedicating a street to Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist assassinated in October 2006.

Disclaimer

Prague Watchdog
© Prague Watchdog