AI: Chechen Committee of National Salvation unjustly checked

In its Memorandum on Human Rights, addressed to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, the largest international human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) is expressing its concern about incessant checks of the activities of the human rights organization named "Chechen Committee of National Salvation" (ChCNS).

The Memorandum says that the Committee, which is engaged in monitoring and covering the situation in Northern Caucasus, and, in particular, in Chechnya, is accused of publishing "extremist" materials in media, aimed at kindling interethnic hatred between Chechens and other nationals.

Having considered these materials, the AI concludes that they have nothing to do with extremism.

"Analysis of these publications held by several independent experts, including members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has also revealed nothing extremist in them," runs the document.

The Memorandum expresses concern of the AI that the ChCNS could become a target of this sort of persecution only because the Committee, having enjoyed the right to the freedom of speech, had published the materials perceived as critical in relation to the authorities.