Human Rights Watch: issue of Chechnya and human rights should be raised at the summit with Russia

The European Union should use the summit Russia-EU to be held on October 26 in Portugal for a resolute dialogue with the Kremlin on the aggravating situation with human rights and justice, including Chechnya.

In its memorandum disseminated today, the Human Rights Watch specifies three key areas, in which the European Union should urgently exhibit its initiative: poor conditions for the civil society, impunity of the authorities for gross violations in Chechnya, and enforcement by the Russian party of the growing number of European Court's decisions, where Russia has been found responsible for these violations.

The memorandum of the Human Rights Watch runs that, in particular, it is necessary to amend the most restrictive legislation provisions on the NGOs, "to liquidate in Chechnya all the informal places of custody, where tortures are the usual practice," and "to ensure access to Northern Caucasus for the profile international observers, including the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, in full conformity with the accepted conditions of such visits," and "to start a detailed examination of the progress in investigating the violations accomplished in Chechnya by federal militaries, militiamen and special agents, as well as by other power structures, with the aim to establish the reasons of low efficiency of such investigations."