The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

ACPC Weekly News UPDATE
October 26, 2009 – November 1, 2009

UN report calls on Russian government to end persecution of activists

The United Nations Human Rights Committee released a report criticizing the Russian government for the failure to protect journalists, activists, prison inmates and political opposition members. The report was issued on the heels of yet another murder of a prominent activist in the North Caucasus last week, Maksharip Aushev. The UN Human Rights Committee called on the Russian government to implement sweeping legal reforms, citing the alleged use of torture, abduction, illegal detention and extrajudicial executions in the North Caucaus by members of security services. Although the report did not mention specific cases, it alluded to the unsolved murders of various journalists and activists involved in human rights issues in the region, such as Anna Politkovskaya, Magomed Yevloyev, Stanislav Markelov, Natalya Estemirova, Zarema Sadulayeva, and Maksharip Aushev, whose perpetrators remain at large.

Underlining the pressures faced by Russian activists and journalists cited in the UN report, Ramzan Kadyrov succeeded in opening a criminal libel case in a Moscow courtlast week against Oleg Orlov, the chair of a prominent human rights organization Memorial. The criminal casecomes just weeks after the judge in a civil case, instigated by President of Chechnya, found Oleg Orlov guilty of defamation for accusing Ramzan Kadyrov of being responsible for the murder of Memorial employee Natalya Estemirova.

Separately, Kadyrov’s lawyer also announced plans to file another defamation case against Novaya Gazeta for publishing an article in which Ramzan Kadyrov was implicated in the murder of his former bodyguard and vocal critic, Umar Israilov, in Vienna, Austria in January of this year. Kadyrov will seek 1 million rubles ($34,000) in damages.

Related articles:

UN panel faults Russia’s support for human rights
Associated Press, October 30, 2009
Kadyrov seeks 1 million rubles in damages from Novaya Gazeta
Gazeta.ru, October 29, 2009 (in Russian)
Reports: Case opened against Russian activist
Associated Press, October 28, 2009

Kadyrov’s efforts to win the propaganda war fall short due to lack of knowledgeable clergy

In Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov has attempted to combat insurgents’ recruitment efforts by implementing a full scale religious and media campaign with an increased focus on local traditions and beliefs to counter the religious ideology preached by the militants. However, results from a republic-wide administered attestation exam, given to the Chechen clergy, showed that 33% of accredited imams failed the exam. The local authorities have been pressuring Muslim clerics to assist the government in efforts to undermine militant ideology through a state campaign by bolstering traditional Islam among the youth. Chechen authorities have threatened to hold individual imams accountable for failing to prevent young men in their respective villages from joining the militants.

Commenting on the results of the exam, the mufti of the Chechen Republic, Sultan Murzayev, stated that those who failed to score 40% (out of 100) would be removed from their posts while the rest would undergo religious seminars. Chechen authorities also announced the launching of an educational religious radio station that will allow residents to call in with questions during live discussion forums.

Muslim clergymen have been increasingly targeted in the North Caucasus as an ideological battle between different movements of Islam has taken root across the region.Gunmen shot and killed a local Muslim cleric in Dagestan on Sunday threatening to further raise tensions in the North Caucasus’s biggest republic embroiled in a conflict that has a strong intra-religious dimension.