Together with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, HRH faxed a letter today to President Vladimir Putin expressing deep concern about the security of Imran Ezhiev, the Chairperson of the Chechen and Ingush branch of the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship (SRCF). Read the letter below. (27-JAN-04)

 

HE Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

President of the Russian Federation

Via Facsimile: + 7 095 206 07 66; + 7 095 206 8510

E-mail: president@gov.ru

27 January 2004

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your Excellency,

 

We write to you to express our deep concern regarding the security of the well-known human rights defender and Chairperson of the Chechen and Ingush branch of the Society of Russian-Chechen Friendship (SRCF), Mr. Imran Ezhiev.

 

After visiting the Chechen Republic and returning to Ingushetia yesterday, a gray 10-model “Zhiguli” car without any number plate have been following Mr. Ezhiev. The fact that the road police do not stop the car without any number plate indicates that it might belong to the security service of the president of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad Kadyrov.

 

Mr Ezhiev is currently investigating the abduction and murder of the SRCF volunteer Aslan Sheripovich Davletukaev. Mr. Davletukaev was abducted on 10 January and found dead in the morning on January 16 by an inspection unit of the Russian army. He is the third SRCF staff or volonteer to be killed.

 

Mr Ezhiev has previously been subject to numerous arbitrary detentions and unlawful arrests by representatives of the police and federal forces. He was detained and tortured for a week in September 2000. He was arrested in Ingushetiya on 13 October 2001 and held for a month in Grozny without any charges filed against him. In two incidents in December 2001, Ezhiev’s brother and a colleague in the SRCF, were killed in the Chechen Republic. There was an attempt to abduct Mr Ezhiev in his home in the Yandariye camp on the night of 2 November 2002.

 

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee sent you a letter dated 17 March with an appeal of your personal involvement in the last case of abduction of Mr Ezhiev. He was detained on March 15 2003 when he was going from Shali district center to Serzhen-Yurt village of the Chechen Republic. After numerous appeals made by international organizations, he was released on March 18 2003.

 

On this background we ask you to take all necessary measures to protect the security of Mr Ezhiev. Personal security is a fundamental human right. As a state party to the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Russian authorities has an obligation not only to respect personal security of all individuals but also to protect it against threats from a third party.

 

As a human rights defender, Mr. Ezhiev should be given special protection by Russian authorities. According to the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Declaration on Human Rights Defenders), “everyone is entitled, individually and in association with others, to be protected effectively under national law in reacting against or opposing, through peaceful means, activities and acts, including those by omission, attributable to States that result in violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as acts of violence perpetrated by groups or individuals that affect the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” (Article 12.3).

 

If Russian authorities are to achieve peace and stability in Northern Caucasus, it must give priority to establishing rule of law. Special protection should be given to human rights defenders. We appeal to you and to all relevant institutions to protect Mr. Ezhiev, and to give priority to ensure accountability for grave human rights abuses such as the murder of Mr. Davletukaev.

 

 

Sincerely yours

 

 

Gunnar M. Karlsen                                          Berit Lindeman

Deputy Secretary General                                Project Manager

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee                 The Norwegian Human Rights House Foundation

 

 

 

CC:

Ø     Ambassador Jurij Kvitsinskij, Embassy of the Russian Federation to Norway

Ø     Procurator General of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Ustinov

Ø     Chairwoman of the Presidential Human Rights Commission of the Russian Federation, Ella Pamfilova

Ø     Director General of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev

Ø     Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe

Ø     Ambassador Øyvind Nordsletten, Embassy of Norway to the Russian Federation

Ø     Ms. Hina Jilani , Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders