At FIDH forum, human rights activists from "Memorial" share experiences of working in Chechnya

Within the section "Role of regional systems of human rights defence in strengthening national justice systems" of the 37th Congress of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), which is now on in Yerevan, human rights activists from the "Memorial" shared their practical experience of defending human rights in Chechnya.

As reported by the author under nickname Yerevanets, who writes in the blog of the "Caucasian Knot" and who visited the above section as a listener, the work there "passed peacefully."

In his report named "Chechnya and Armenia", the above author shares his impressions about the reports made by activists of the HRC "Memorial" Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya and Kirill Koroteyev, noting that their presentations allowed "to get an idea of what human rights activists are doing in Chechnya, so to say, from inside."

"Some episodes from their stories were already known, but the majority of facts were new," writes the author about the work of the section. "For example, I heard for the first time about the bombardment in 1999 of Shami-Yurt village, after which the general who gave the order to bomb the peaceful village was nominated for advance in office."

"By the way, Mr Koroteyev presented a curious fact," writes the blogger. "It's universally known that to be eligible for the ECtHR, a complaint should exhaust all the domestic instances. In Chechnya this issue was 'settled' radically - courts simply refuse to accept cases on kidnappings and murders to consideration."

The listener of the section and a resident of Yerevan also notes that the processes underway in Chechnya look very much like the work of "the militia, prosecutor's office and the courts" in Armenia."

In his other note "Incident at FIDH Forum" the author writes about the report of Artak Zeinalyan, "defender of the interests of the massacre on March 1, 2008, in Yerevan."

"He's a nice guy: he managed to present - briefly and fully - the whole today's situation in Armenia and raised the issue not only of the victims, on whose murders not a single case was initiated within 2 years, but also of the political prisoners and litigations on them. His presentation was welcomed by long applause of the audience," wrote the visitor of the forum.