Dzokhar-Ghala/Agency Caucasus – Chechen members of the local non-governmental organization called ‘The Worry of Mother’ gathered on Saturday outside the Bilimhanov stadium in Dzokhar-Ghala, capital of Chechnya, to express their demand that Russia’s puppet Chechen administration should account for the whereabouts of those kidnapped.
Representatives of other non-governmental organizations and government officials in charge of human rights attended the meeting.
It was on July 16 when the most recent instance of kidnapping has occurred in Chechnya’s Shatoy province. Even Yunus and Aslambek Timishev, relatives of Chechen lawyer Ilyas Timishev were kidnapped. Ilyas Timishev is the man who made it a case at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to look into the Chechen kidnaps. However, Nurdi Nuhajiyev, a Chechen human rights official, dismissed news of the Timishevs being kidnapped as inaccurate: "Imishev’s nephew was arrested on the basis of intelligence that he could be tied to an illegal armed organization. He is currently held at a police station in Shatoy for interrogation."
Officials of local human rights organizations, however, said that the police kidnapped Yunus and Aslambek Timishev as a way of pressing Ilyas Timishev to withdraw his case from Strasbourg.
In 2005, lawyer Ilyas Timishev brought a case to the ECHR against children being banned from going to school and against the traffic police forbidding him from entering Nalchik. When he won it, he was awarded with €76 000 in compensation.
Local security forces snatched Zaur Betilgireyev, aged 27, from the Serjen-Yurt village of Shali on the morning of July 16. His mother, Luiza Betilgireyeva was working for the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society when the Russian soldiers killed her in 2003.
Mikhail Ejiyev, Chairman of the Chechen Human Rights Organization, said that Zaur Betilgireyev was currently kept in a special inspection office in Dzokhar-Ghala.
Human rights defenders say that over 3 000 Chechens have been abducted since 1999.
KU/ÖZ/FT
