The letter was agreed upon during the Conference on the situation of human rights in the North Caucasus, organized by Civil Rights Defenders in Stockholm on 23-24 November 2010.

Lack of effective implementation
The signatories draw the President’s attention to the lack of effective implementation of the Assembly’s Resolution 1738 (2010) “Legal remedies for human rights violations in the North Caucasus region,” which was based on the June 1 report by the Committee’s rapporteur, Dick Marty.

His report included detailed descriptions of specific cases of violations. D.Marty demanded in the report the effective prosecution of such cases as an important step toward ending impunity and re-establishing the rule of law in the North Caucasus.

Recommendations
The Assembly’s Resolution 1738 (2010) recommended the Russian government to bring to trial in accordance with the law all culprits of human rights violations, including members of the security forces, and to clear up the many crimes which have gone unpunished.

It also encourages to provide the necessary conditions to ensure that victims of human rights abuses have access to justice and are free to exercise their rights to an effective remedy before the judicial authorities and enjoy adequate protection.

According to the undersigned organizations, the Russian delegation to the Assembly and high-level Russian officials endorsed Resolution 1738, giving an important indication of their commitment to ensure its implementation.

“Unfortunately, in the six months following the adoption of Resolution 1738, the human rights situation in the region has not improved and there has been no tangible progress in investigations into concrete cases of human rights violations in the Chechen Republic, Dagestan and Ingushetia documented in Mr. Marty’s report,” the letter reads.

Important to resume the mandate
The signatories to the letter call upon the President of PACE to resume the mandate under which Mr. Marty undertook his work on the North Caucasus.

“It is crucial that the momentum created by Mr. Marty’s report not get lost and that the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee be empowered to follow up in a sustained manner on this work,” it is said in the letter.

Also the authors of the letter offer the Committee to request information from the Russian government regarding the course of investigation into the cases documented in the June 2010 report.

Moreover, the signatories hope to see the Committee appoint a rapporteur to carry out a follow-up mission to the region with the objective of reporting to the Assembly on the degree of progress achieved in the investigation of the cases detailed in his report and more broadly the dynamics of the human rights situation in the region.

Read the letter of human rights organizations to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe here.

The letter was undersigned by:

Civil Rights Defenders
Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
Memorial
Carl Gershman, President, the National Endowment for Democracy, USA
Russian Justice Initiative
Committee against Torture
Civil Society and Freedom of Speech Initiative Center for the Caucasus
Voice of Beslan
Mothers of Dagestan
Pravozashita
Mothers of Kabardino-Balkaria for Democracy and Peace
MASHR
Norwegian Helsinki Committee
Chechen Committee for National Salvation
Israpil Shovkhalov, Editor-in-Chief, Journal Dosh
Varvara Pakhomenko, Consultant on the North and South Caucasus
Östgruppen – Swedish Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights
Status Quo

HRH Oslo, based on a joint letter to to the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Related links:

Attacks on journalists in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia – attacks on freedom of expression?

Russia: Chechen human rights advocate remembered

Council of Europe adopted Resolution on the North Caucasus

Russia: freedom of expression remains under threat in the North Caucasus

Kadyrov drops charges against two human rights defenders but pressure continues

Statements:

Condemning the murder of Natalia Estemirova (South Caucasus Network of Human Rights Defenders)

Call for immediate investigation of the murder of Natalia Estemirova