14:46, 7 May 2019

"Memorial" complains to Moskalkova of delay in payments to Vremenny residents

Village of Vremenny after special operation, December 2014. Photo: press service of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", http://memohrc.org

The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" appealed to Russia's Ombudsperson Tatiana Moskalkova with a request to find out why the Russian Ministry of Finance demanded to review the documents submitted by victims of the counterterrorist operation (CTO) in Dagestan.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that since September 2014, residents of the Dagestani village of Vremenny have been seeking compensation from the authorities for their houses destroyed during the CTO. On March 12, the Untsukul District Court recognized the fact that the district administration had been inactive.

On September 18, 2014, residents of Vremenny reported the blocking of their settlement by law enforcers, house-by-house raids, and, later, the shortage of foodstuffs and destruction of their yard structures by law enforcers. On October 8, 2014, almost all the residents left the blocked settlement. In December 2014, a special commission found 52 houses unfit for residence.

The HRC "Memorial" asked Russia's Ombudsperson Tatiana Moskalkova to send a request to the Ministry of Finance about the reasons for returning the documents necessary for paying compensation to the residents of Vremenny village and to assess the legitimacy of such a return, the press service of the HRC "Memorial" reports today.

In its appeal to the Russia's Ombudsperson, the HRC "Memorial" emphasized that the above mentioned documents had been approved by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and the Government of Dagestan, as well as the government and the Ministry for Emergencies (MfE) of Russia. However, when the documents came to the Ministry of Finance, it returned them for revision and explained that the MfE had not submitted any acts of examination of the lost property and materials about recognition of citizens as victims of the CTO.

According to the HRC "Memorial", the laws and regulations do not contain any requirements for the submission of acts of examination of lost property and materials on the recognition of citizens as victims of the CTO.

"It would be possible to submit documents on recognition of people as victims only in case of an opened criminal case. For two years, we had been seeing the institution of a criminal case. But we didn't succeed in that. Therefore, there are no materials on victim recognition and it is not possible to submit them," the HRC "Memorial" quotes its appeal to Russia's Ombudsperson Tatiana Moskalkova.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 7, 2019 at 11:22 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.