Since the start of December the Russian military has been coming more and more frequently to the Shali and Grozny regions in Chechnya. Mop-up operations, secret killings, night raids by armored personnel carriers and other army vehicles … Take for example the village of Starye Atagi. A sweep-up operation in the village has now entered into its 17th day. Since movements to and from the village are restricted, it’s difficult to obtain detailed accounts of what is happening there. Workers of the Memorial rights group in Narzan know little about the situation: 24 persons arrested, including 16-year-old Esambayev. What will become of all these people? Full Story...
Leader of the opposition Popular Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan Boris Shikhmuradov presented himself to the Turkmen national security committee in Ashgabat on December 25. Next day the state-run mass media in Turkmenistan announced the arrest of Shikhmuradov. A PRIMA correspondent got in touch with Murad Esenov, representative of the opposition movement in Stockholm, and asked him to comment on the decision of the leader of the largest opposition group. Full Story...
Speaking to your correspondent on December 24, assistant to the Moscow city prosecutor Svetlana Petrenko dismissed rumors that J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series and its screen sequels, which have captivated the entire world, would be soon banned in Russia, and its publishers brought to court. But she still said that they have received a “signal” that needs to be checked. Full Story...
Ukraine’s communists and socialists are promising to remove Leonid Kuchma from the post of president in March 2003. Human rights defenders have refused Kuchma’s proposal to meet with them in his residence. Citizens are showering curses on the president and dreaming, that his place will be taken by a new Stalin or Brezhnev. Today, all that is left for Leonid Kuchma is one single trump card - anti-communism. Though, they say, the trump card is losing its strength. Full Story...
The recent “assassination attempt” on Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov has generated a huge, thundering, angry and well-orchestrated response of Turkmen citizens. The mass media has also been duly instructed on how to react to this event. The republican prosecutor general, Kurbanbibi Atadzhanova, barked out from national television screen an order to attack. Turkmenistani methods for inciting public hatred resemble Soviet-era campaigns surrounding the Stalinist trials of “people’s enemies” in 1937—1938. Full Story...
The government of Kyrgyzstan approved last week a concept of the penitentiary system reform in the republic for the period up to 2010. The first step undertaken by Kyrgyzstan in this matter was the transfer of correctional-labor colonies from the jurisdiction of the ministry of the interior to that of the justice ministry. “The observance of human rights norms at all stages of the criminal procedure” has been declared to be a principal goal of this reform. Full Story...
Last Saturday former field commander of the Chechen Resistance Salman Raduyev died in prison in the Urals town of Solikamsk. The powers of justice had sentenced him to life imprisonment, but the authorities had executed him. The constitutional principle of the separation of powers works this way too. Full Story...
A small courtyard of a private house in Havana was packed to the full. Dozens of men and women, foreign reporters with video and photo cameras, independent Cuban journalists converged on this small private house of ex-political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello on December 10. Among them was a representative of the US interests section in Havana. The house and adjacent streets were being patrolled by police vehicles and state security officers. Because there, on Human Rights Day, gathered Cuban dissidents to reaffirm their strong determination to struggle for freedom and democracy in Cuba. That gathering was a first-ever congress of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society launched in October of this year. Full Story...
"Today’s morning a meeting of protest took place in the local administration of Gyaoursskiy district against the base contract killers, who made an attempt upon the most sacred thing Turkmen people have - the life of their leader", "one after another members of public came up to the tribune deeply indignant by the foul crime. They demanded the strictest measures against them, even capital punishment", "There is not and never can be mercy to the scum who raised their hand on the life of the first President of the country", "Death to the scoundrels!".
Pages of all Turkmen press are full of reports like these.
Turkmen dictator named the organisers of the attempt to assassinate him on 25 November, when his armoured car was fired at from machine-guns on the streets of Ashkhabad. Among the alleged organisers is Boris Shikhmuradov, former head of Turkmen Foreign Ministry, now Chairman of People's Movement For Democracy in Turkmenistan. PRIMA News correspondent has got in touch with Shikhmuradov and asked him to comment on Niyasov's statement. Full Story...
With Akhmed Zakayev’ release from the Danish prison, the Kremlin has once again made a fool of itself. Nobody will ever believe that Denmark is, knowingly, secretly or openly, supporting terrorism. This small democratic country has come to a firm conclusion that not all members of the Chechen resistance are terrorists. Denmark’s refusal to extradite Zakayev to Russia has cut the ground from the Kremlin, frustrating its hopes that the world will ‘pocket’ the Kremlin-sponsored genocide in Chechnya and obediently surrender to Moscow everyone whom Cheka men sitting on Lubyanka Square label as terrorists. As the man acquitted by Denmark, as the man who has got world recognition, and mainly as potential peacemaker, Zakayev becomes now even more dangerous for the Kremlin. Full Story...