CHECHNYA LINKS LIBRARY

The Month in Brief - January 2007

January 5

Ibragim Dadayev, a former commander of the Akhmat Kadyrov special task police unit, replaced Suleiman Abuyev as commander of the first regiment of the local beat police (the Chechen Interior Ministry's Patrol and Point Duty Service No.1).

January 6

Imran Janaraliyev, 47, an editor of the sole children's magazine in the Chechen language, Stela1ad („Rainbow“), died of a heart attack aged 47 when travelling to Grozny.

January 9

Participants in a joint session of the Moscow-backed Chechen government and Parliament that focused on the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the Chechen and Ingush ASSR decided that a memorial to Nikita Khrushchev, a Soviet leader under which Chechens returned from their places of deportation, would be built in the center of Grozny this summer.

January 11

Security forces killed three alleged guerrillas, including Shamil Ghasanov, in a special operation in an apartment block in the Daghestani capital of Makhachkala.

January 12

General Leonid Krivonos was appointed military commandant of the Chechen Republic, replacing Grigory Fomenko, who was appointed first deputy commander of the Interior Ministry forces in the Northern Caucasus, stated Nikolai Rogozhkin, the chief commander of Russian Interior Ministry forces.

January 13

A Chechen cadet corps compound was opened in Tsentoroy, the native village of the Moscow-backed Chechen Premier Ramzan Kadyrov. The military school will provide education and training to 50 children.

January 15

The deadline for the amnesty for guerrillas and federal servicemen operating in the Northern Caucasus, which has been underway since the summer of 2006, expired. The authorities claimed that about 500 guerrillas surrendered, most of them in Chechnya, but independent monitors said they were mostly former guerrillas.

Members of the upper chamber of Chechen parliament started working in the same building where the lower house deputies work. The building is located in Grozny's Leninsky district.

January 16-17

Security was tightened across Russia because the country's security services reportedly received information from foreign partners about a looming terrorist attack on public transport.

January 17

The Chechen presidential press service announced that the Forest Industry Ministry was created in Chechnya and Dikmagomed Mulayev, former head of the Chechen section of the Federal Agency for Forest Industries, was appointed its head.

January 18

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia for using torture against two Chechen citizens, namely Arbi Chitayev and his brother Adam. The victims lodged their complaint with the court in July 2000.

January 23

Russia's Supreme Court upheld a lower court's decision to dismantle the NGO Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, which reports on the conflict in Chechnya and human rights violations taking place there. The Nizhny Novgorod-based organization will appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

January 24

The Moscow-backed Chechen President Alu Alkhanov said that he would not like to remain in office after his current term ends in 2008.

January 25

The Netherlands-based NGO Russian Justice Initiative, which helps the victims of grave human rights violations in Chechnya seek justice at the European Court of Human Rights, announced that on January 19 Russia’s Federal Registration Service had refused to register its representative office in Moscow for a second time.

The Moscow-backed Chechen Premier Ramzan Kadyrov stated that he would ask for reviewing of the criminal cases involving Chechen nationals who had been sent to Russian prisons on trumped-up charges, according to the January 26 report by Russian daily Kommersant.

January 29

Four servicemen of the Russian Defence Ministry's Chechen battalion Vostok and one guerrilla were killed in a clash near the village of Azamat-Yurt in Chechnya's Gudermessky district.

January 31

The Moscow-backed Chechen government decided to rename Sergo Ordzhonikidze Square to Nikita Khrushchev Square to pay a tribute to the Soviet leader under which Chechens returned from their places of deportation.

Compiled by Prague Watchdog. Along with these monthly summaries, we also publish weekly summaries, distributing them on Mondays to the subscribers of our free weekly newsletter.

(T/B)