Russian Prison Hell for Chechens
Allegations of widespread abuse of Chechens held in Russian prisons, and claims that many were convicted on false charges.
Russian Prison Hell for Chechens
Allegations of widespread abuse of Chechens held in Russian prisons, and claims that many were convicted on false charges.
On September 15, 2004, Kazbek was arrested in his home city of Grozny by masked men from the security services. The 23-year-old, who was a part-time student working as a policeman at the time, was taken away and later signed a confession under duress.
Kazbek, whose family did not want his surname to be used, was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for “membership of an armed gang”, and is currently in a high-security prison in the Sverdlovsk region in central Russia.
As a result he has never seen his son, the younger of his two children.
He started working for the Chechen police after returning home in 2001. He had been away to avoid the conflict, spending the time earning a history degree and working on a law degree on a correspondence course.
His mother said his problems started because he could no longer endure the operations he was required to take part in as a policeman.
When he came home in low spirits one day, she asked him what was wrong. “He said, ‘Mother, when Russian soldiers were kicking mothers like you with their boots and beating them with their rifle butts during the clean-up operations, I was standing guard. What kind of a Chechen am I? I don’t need the bread I earn for standing with a gun in my hands.’”
Kazbek subsequently filed a complaint about such abuses.
Conditions for Chechens held in Russian jails are routinely described as appalling, and brutality against inmates is reportedly endemic.
According to Kazbek’s mother, the Sverdlovsk prison – which she has visited – is “most terrible”. But the inmates do not speak out, “because they will be beaten to death”, she said.
“They’ve been hurled into the jaws of the Russian soldiers who took part in so-called ‘antiterrorism operations’,” she said, adding that these troops themselves are “the victims of political games”.
“They got badges and medals for killing their own brothers. Let their mothers rejoice because they won their medals for killing their sisters’ children,” she said.
Senior government officials in Chechnya as well as relatives are concerned at conditions in Russia’s jails, and say they believe a high proportion of the 12,000 Chechens serving prison sentences in Russia were convicted unjustly.
Last year, Chechen human rights ombudsman Nurdi Nukhazhiev said he believe most of these prisoners were innocent.” In 2006, Nukhazhiev received 72 complaints alleging wrongful conviction of family members. But the relatives have few mechanisms they can pursue to overturn convictions, and even lawyers are frequently denied access to their clients.
The issue has become so contentious that the most powerful man in Chechnya, Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, has chosen to intervene. At the end of January, he ordered one of his deputy prime ministers, Adam Delimkhanov, to investigate whether Chechens held both inside Chechnya and elsewhere in Russia were being detained legally, and promised greater government support for such individuals.
“Complaints addressed to the ombudsman have started coming in from residents of Chechnya, and we are handling them jointly,” said Ismal Dadalayev, who heads the office of the deputy prime-minister in charge of security matters. “If a man is found to have been placed in prison illegally, we will take action and try to get results.
“For now, the parliament of Chechnya intends to ask the State Duma of the Russian Federation to amend the current legislation so that imprisoned Chechens can be transferred back to the republic and serve their prison terms there.”
Hussein Elsunkayev, an official who works for ombudsman Nukhazhiev, said that his office had compiled evidence of “mass violations of the rights of Chechen natives, on the grounds of ethnicity and place of origin.”
Elsunkaev concluded that in the ombudsman’s view, “A Chechen does not feel he is a full citizen of the Russian Federation these days.”
Human rights activists say that in Chechnya, cases are often fabricated against people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“The classic method of rigging criminal cases goes as follows,” said Yekaterina Sokiryanskaya of the human rights organisation Memorial. “As a rule, people in masks come and take a man away, showing no documents and saying nothing to his relatives. Then they use illegal interrogation methods to force him to confess. They employ torture, beatings and threats of sexual violence – the latter being especially effective. After that, people are ready to sign anything and confess to any crime. Then the charges are put into a legal format in the investigation cell, and formalised in the pre-trial detention centre.”
Sokiryanskaya said interrogators often beat detainees with plastic bottles filled with water so as to avoid leaving physical traces of abuse.
“When a man is subjected to unlawful treatment, what’s the guarantee that he is guilty?” asked Sokiryanskaya. “Some human rights organisations try to help, and there are lawyers who really defend people, and from time to time good decisions are taken.
“But even when attempts to rig a criminal case are exposed in court, the policemen involved are never convicted. Criminal cases get fabricated everywhere in the North Caucasus, but in Chechnya the practice is especially conspicuous.”
“They use all the criminal charges that they can muster,” added Elsunkayev. “These include participation in illegal armed groups, brigandage, terrorism, the murder of one or more policemen, or illegal possession of arms. We have files on cases involving young men who were convicted under all these gruesome articles of Russia’s criminal code.”
Another human rights activist, Shamil Tangiev of Memorial, said the Chechen prosecutor’s office could not be regarded as independent and was cooperating with other official bodies.
“We believe the courts, the prosecutor’s office, and the investigative bodies are united in a cover-up,” said Tangiev.
IWPR contacted the prosecution service in Chechnya about the widespread allegations of fabricated criminal cases. The prosecutor’s office asked for written questions, which were submitted a month ago, but despite further requests, it has failed to provide answers.
The issue of family members detained in Russia touches almost every community in Chechnya. In the village outside Grozny where Kazbek’s family lives, there are more than 70 mothers waiting from day to day for their sons to return and saving money so that they can go to see them in jail.
The mother of another detainee called Aslan said he is routinely humiliated by his jailers.
“When my son was fasting during the sacred month of Ramadan, they would give him pork, knowing that he was a Muslim and wouldn’t eat it,” she said. “They give him two cups of tea and a slice of bread every day. He stays in a solitary cell, one metre square with an iron bed… and no blanket or mattress. The toilet is in the cell.”
These mothers hope the Russian government will allow their sons to be transferred to prisons in Chechnya.
“Nothing lasts forever in this world, and those who are responsible for this won’t escape divine justice. Our innocent children know what’s been done to them but don’t know why – and they must be saved,” said Kazbek’s mother. “There must be more than 10,000 mothers of these poor children, and there are also their wives, children, sisters and brothers. How can we sleep properly, eat well and call ourselves proper human beings?”
Asya Umarova is a correspondent for Chechenskoye Obschestvo newspaper.
Kazbek, whose family did not want his surname to be used, was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for “membership of an armed gang”, and is currently in a high-security prison in the Sverdlovsk region in central Russia.
As a result he has never seen his son, the younger of his two children.
He started working for the Chechen police after returning home in 2001. He had been away to avoid the conflict, spending the time earning a history degree and working on a law degree on a correspondence course.
His mother said his problems started because he could no longer endure the operations he was required to take part in as a policeman.
When he came home in low spirits one day, she asked him what was wrong. “He said, ‘Mother, when Russian soldiers were kicking mothers like you with their boots and beating them with their rifle butts during the clean-up operations, I was standing guard. What kind of a Chechen am I? I don’t need the bread I earn for standing with a gun in my hands.’”
Kazbek subsequently filed a complaint about such abuses.
Conditions for Chechens held in Russian jails are routinely described as appalling, and brutality against inmates is reportedly endemic.
According to Kazbek’s mother, the Sverdlovsk prison – which she has visited – is “most terrible”. But the inmates do not speak out, “because they will be beaten to death”, she said.
“They’ve been hurled into the jaws of the Russian soldiers who took part in so-called ‘antiterrorism operations’,” she said, adding that these troops themselves are “the victims of political games”.
“They got badges and medals for killing their own brothers. Let their mothers rejoice because they won their medals for killing their sisters’ children,” she said.
Senior government officials in Chechnya as well as relatives are concerned at conditions in Russia’s jails, and say they believe a high proportion of the 12,000 Chechens serving prison sentences in Russia were convicted unjustly.
Last year, Chechen human rights ombudsman Nurdi Nukhazhiev said he believe most of these prisoners were innocent.” In 2006, Nukhazhiev received 72 complaints alleging wrongful conviction of family members. But the relatives have few mechanisms they can pursue to overturn convictions, and even lawyers are frequently denied access to their clients.
The issue has become so contentious that the most powerful man in Chechnya, Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, has chosen to intervene. At the end of January, he ordered one of his deputy prime ministers, Adam Delimkhanov, to investigate whether Chechens held both inside Chechnya and elsewhere in Russia were being detained legally, and promised greater government support for such individuals.
“Complaints addressed to the ombudsman have started coming in from residents of Chechnya, and we are handling them jointly,” said Ismal Dadalayev, who heads the office of the deputy prime-minister in charge of security matters. “If a man is found to have been placed in prison illegally, we will take action and try to get results.
“For now, the parliament of Chechnya intends to ask the State Duma of the Russian Federation to amend the current legislation so that imprisoned Chechens can be transferred back to the republic and serve their prison terms there.”
Hussein Elsunkayev, an official who works for ombudsman Nukhazhiev, said that his office had compiled evidence of “mass violations of the rights of Chechen natives, on the grounds of ethnicity and place of origin.”
Elsunkaev concluded that in the ombudsman’s view, “A Chechen does not feel he is a full citizen of the Russian Federation these days.”
Human rights activists say that in Chechnya, cases are often fabricated against people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“The classic method of rigging criminal cases goes as follows,” said Yekaterina Sokiryanskaya of the human rights organisation Memorial. “As a rule, people in masks come and take a man away, showing no documents and saying nothing to his relatives. Then they use illegal interrogation methods to force him to confess. They employ torture, beatings and threats of sexual violence – the latter being especially effective. After that, people are ready to sign anything and confess to any crime. Then the charges are put into a legal format in the investigation cell, and formalised in the pre-trial detention centre.”
Sokiryanskaya said interrogators often beat detainees with plastic bottles filled with water so as to avoid leaving physical traces of abuse.
“When a man is subjected to unlawful treatment, what’s the guarantee that he is guilty?” asked Sokiryanskaya. “Some human rights organisations try to help, and there are lawyers who really defend people, and from time to time good decisions are taken.
“But even when attempts to rig a criminal case are exposed in court, the policemen involved are never convicted. Criminal cases get fabricated everywhere in the North Caucasus, but in Chechnya the practice is especially conspicuous.”
“They use all the criminal charges that they can muster,” added Elsunkayev. “These include participation in illegal armed groups, brigandage, terrorism, the murder of one or more policemen, or illegal possession of arms. We have files on cases involving young men who were convicted under all these gruesome articles of Russia’s criminal code.”
Another human rights activist, Shamil Tangiev of Memorial, said the Chechen prosecutor’s office could not be regarded as independent and was cooperating with other official bodies.
“We believe the courts, the prosecutor’s office, and the investigative bodies are united in a cover-up,” said Tangiev.
IWPR contacted the prosecution service in Chechnya about the widespread allegations of fabricated criminal cases. The prosecutor’s office asked for written questions, which were submitted a month ago, but despite further requests, it has failed to provide answers.
The issue of family members detained in Russia touches almost every community in Chechnya. In the village outside Grozny where Kazbek’s family lives, there are more than 70 mothers waiting from day to day for their sons to return and saving money so that they can go to see them in jail.
The mother of another detainee called Aslan said he is routinely humiliated by his jailers.
“When my son was fasting during the sacred month of Ramadan, they would give him pork, knowing that he was a Muslim and wouldn’t eat it,” she said. “They give him two cups of tea and a slice of bread every day. He stays in a solitary cell, one metre square with an iron bed… and no blanket or mattress. The toilet is in the cell.”
These mothers hope the Russian government will allow their sons to be transferred to prisons in Chechnya.
“Nothing lasts forever in this world, and those who are responsible for this won’t escape divine justice. Our innocent children know what’s been done to them but don’t know why – and they must be saved,” said Kazbek’s mother. “There must be more than 10,000 mothers of these poor children, and there are also their wives, children, sisters and brothers. How can we sleep properly, eat well and call ourselves proper human beings?”
Asya Umarova is a correspondent for Chechenskoye Obschestvo newspaper.
