The Month in Brief - June 2007
June 2
Two policemen and three guerrillas were killed in clashes near the village of Botash-Yurt (Solnechnoye) in the Khasavyurt district of Dagestan.
June 2-4
During a 3-day visit to Kazakhstan, where an estimated number of 40-50,000 of Chechens and Ingushetians now live, Moscow-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov met with President Nursultan Nazarbayev and representatives of the Chechen diaspora.
June 4
Refugees from village of Borozdinovskaya in Chechnya's Shelkovsky district held a rally to commemorate the second anniversary of a raid on their village which had made them leave it and set up a refugee camp in neighbouring Dagestan.
The pro-guerrilla Chechenpress website reported that Amir Seyf-Islam was appointed Chief of the General Staff of the Amed Forces of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria at a recent meeting of the supreme military command of Ichkerian forces.
June 5
Chechen websites published decrees of Ichkerian President Dokka Umarov making Khizir Umarkhadzhiyev deputy General Representative of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria in foreign countries and Yakub Magomedov Ichkerian Representative in the Middle East, replacing Umarkhadzhiyev.
The number of registered small business owners in Chechnya had reached 20,000, the Moscow-backed Chechen government's press service announced. However, the actual number of small business providers was considerably higher, the press service added.
June 6
Larisa Dorogova, a lawyer who represents the relatives of some of the dozens of young men killed during guerrilla attacks on police and security targets in the Kabardino-Balkarian capital of Nalchik on October 13-14, said that 95 bodies were cremated on June 22, 2006, referring to Russia's reply to the European Court of Human Rights.
June 8
The founding conference of the first official Chechen youth movement, the so-called "Ramzan" Patriotic Club, was held in Grozny.
June 9
Rallies were held in Moscow and several European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland and Sweden, to demand the return by the Russian government to his relatives of the body of Aslan Maskhadov, President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.
June 12
Events marking Russia Day took place throughout Chechnya.
June 13
Vedensky district administration head Ali Sinbagirov and three policemen were wounded when their convoy came under fire near the villages of Tanez-Kala and Belgatoi.
June 14
The North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced four members of the special forces of Russian military intelligence, including their commander, Captain Ulman, to 9-14 years in prison for killing six Chechen civilians in 2002. Only one of the four officers was present in court, while the whereabouts of the three others are unknown.
June 15
Grozny-inform reported that poet and journalist Khozhbaudi Borkhadzhiyev had replaced Ruslan Yusupov as head of the Union of Journalists of the Chechen Republic.
The Russian Prosecutor's Office announced that the Chechen Prosecutor's Office completed the investigation of the case of Denilbek Khadzhiyev, a senior Chechen official detained in April on suspicion of embezzling budget funds allocated for the reconstruction of Chechnya, and sent the case to a court in Grozny.
June 17
Moscow-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov dismissed Ruslan Zakharov, head of Grozny's Oktyabrsky district, and Zhamli Khadashev, Shatoisky district head, for their poor work performance and results.
June 18
Defence lawyer Roman Krzhechkovsky appealed to Russia's Supreme Court against the North Caucasus Military District Court's verdict of June 14 on the "Ulman case", by which four Russian officers were given prison sentences of from 9 to 14 years for killing Chechen civilians.
June 19
The website of the Beslan public investigation association “Pravda Beslana” (Truth of Beslan) published police documents confirming that the police in the North Ossetian town of Beslan had been warned about a planned hostage-taking "in a public building" in September 2004.
June 20
Four servicemen were killed in a gunfight between members of the Chechen "Zapad" (West) battalion and local police in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district. A fifth soldier later died in the hospital.
A group of unknown men attacked the OMON police base in the Ingush town of Karabulak. Several policemen were wounded by fire from automatic weapons and grenade launchers.
June 21
The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia for the killing of Chechen activist Zura Bitiyeva and her husband, son and brother, who were shot dead by unknown people at their home in the Chechen town of Kalinovskaya in May 2003, and for the harsh treatment of Bitiyeva during her detention in 2000.
The first-ever session of the Constitutional Assembly of the Chechen Republic unanimously approved Ramzan Kadyrov's proposals to amend the republic's Constitution, including the extension of the term of office of the president and parliament from four to five years. A referendum on the changes will be held on December 2, 2007.
June 22
In central Moscow an Armenian national was wounded during a clash involving about 50 young people, who included Russian nationalists and people from the Caucasus.
June 23
Ramzan Kadyrov was re-elected secretary of the Chechen regional branch of the Unified Russia party.
The Russian government ordered that the special federal programme of economic and social renewal for Chechnya should be completed by the end of 2007. Earlier, Vedomosti wrote that in the next period, between 2008 and 2011, Chechnya may receive 80 billion roubles.
June 26
The Voice of Beslan committee announced that the victims of the September 2004 Beslan terrorist act and subsequent botched rescue operation had filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Residents of the Chechen village of Borozdinovskaya who fled their homes in June 2005 held a protest rally in the Kizlyarsky district of Dagestan.
June 26-27
Representatives of some 30 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) visited Chechnya to meet with representatives of the Moscow-backed Chechen leadership and acquaint themselves with the latest developments in the republic, particularly the boom in building and reconstruction.
June 27
Akhmed Zakayev, a representative of the government of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, visited a PACE session in Strasbourg. Subsequently, the Russian delegation to PACE made a formal complaint to the French authorities about Zakayev's presence there.
A large-scale brawl broke out between visiting Chechen youths and local residents at a health camp in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria.
The Council of Non-governmental Organizations, a local NGO, reported that the Chechen authorities are evicting displaced persons from a number of temporary accommodation centres in Grozny by means of threats and deception, and in spite of the fact that many of them have nowhere else to go.
Two guerrillas were killed in the course of a special operation in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria. One of them was Ruslan Odizhev, a former Guantanamo detainee.
June 28
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists announced that Russian journalists Yuri Bagrov and Fatima Tlisova, who worked as North Caucasus correspondents for a number of foreign and domestic news outlets and were harassed and attacked by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), resettled in the United States after receiving refugee status.
President Putin dismissed Beslan Khamkhoyev as head of the Ingushetian interior ministry, appointing in his place Musa Medov, who has recently been discharging the duties associated with that post.
The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation upheld the legality of refusals to return the bodies of terrorists to their relatives. At the same time, the court ordered that the state should respect the religious customs of those concerned and that courts had to establish whether the dead person really participated in an act of terrorism, which is crucial for making the decision on the return of the body.
Several hundred people protested in Grozny against the efforts of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office to implicate the victims of the "Ulman case" in the possible abduction of the Russian spetsnaz officers who killed their loved ones in 2002. The officers had disappeared two weeks earlier, shortly before being sentenced.
June 29
Young Chechen singer Milana Balayeva was seriously wounded and her mother killed when unknown men broke into their flat in Grozny and opened fire on them.
June 30
Ramzan Terloyev was introduced as new head of Chechnya's Itum-Kalinsky district administration after being recently appointed to the post by Moscow-backed Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
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.
(D,T)
DISCUSSION FORUM
|
