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| Russian human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin
/ Photo: Kirill Kallinikov, Moscow News Picture Agency |
Forces answerable to Chechnya's pro-Moscow president are committing new
types of human rights abuses in the troubled region, Russia's newly-elected
rights ombudsman Vladimir
Lukin said on Thursday, the Reuters news agency reported.
Lukin also said
he was powerless to intervene in what will be the country's most high-profile
trial, the case of Russia's richest man, oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Lukin, a prominent liberal appointed in February, said he wanted a deputy
to ensure systematic monitoring of Chechnya, where separatists have fought
Russian rule for a decade.
He said he believed information from Chechnya was highly politicised.
But his understanding of events, based on observations by rights activists
and others, was that intrusive security sweeps by Russian forces were
becoming less frequent.
"But there is a worry that there are new types of rights abuses
on both sides, and on a third side, by which I mean units under Chechen
President (Akhmad) Kadyrov," Lukin said. "These abuses are more
specific in nature and difficult to verify from Moscow."
Activists say excesses are committed by Russian forces, rebels and by
forces loyal to Kadyrov, who has at his disposal a force several thousand
strong, mostly former rebels, under the command of his son Ramzan. The
force, accused by rights groups of mass kidnappings, operates largely
outside Moscow's control.
Moscow says the region is returning to normal under Kadyrov, elected in
October under Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's plan to end the conflict.
Lukin, Russia's first post-Soviet ambassador to Washington, called for
more action to safeguard Chechen rights, including the creation of a parliament
to be elected this year in the regional capital Grozny.
Moscow had a human rights representative in Chechnya until January, when
Putin removed him and handed his duties to Kadyrov. It was not immediately
clear how Lukin and Kadyrov would work together.
Lukin's nomination was seen as a Kremlin concession to Russia's liberals
after they were routed in last December's parliamentary election won by
Putin's allies. His Yabloko party, one of two liberal groups, was all
but shut out of parliament.
Many analysts believe Putin used a crackdown on corruption to clip the
wings of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the politically ambitious head of oil giant
YUKOS who is now awaiting trial for tax evasion and fraud.
Lukin said he was powerless to interven, pending the trial. But he had
received no complaints from the legal defence team.
"The human rights commissioner has no right to influence or interfere
in such cases while they are under the court's jurisdiction," he
said.
See also:
Human
Rights
War in
Chechnya
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