Threats against expert of Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations

We call your attention to a press release by the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations:

"Tamerlan Aliyev, an expert of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, is threatened with savage punishment for being a "national traitor". His name is in the list of 200 people that is being spread in Chechnya. The opening address reads that these persons are traitors of the Ichkerian people and they are employed by the Main Intelligence Department (GRU). Then it is said that all these people will be finished. The list itself was allegedly bought from Salam Gairbekov, an officer of the Chechen Interior Ministry's organized crime unit. The position number 170 in the list is "Aliyev Tamerlan - Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations." Names of all editors of the Chechen state media, the republican leadership and officers of security agencies are also put on the list. The appeal is signed as "Ichkerian Sword".

The attention should be drawn to the fact that such threats are not an uncommon thing in Chechnya. In August 2001, the "sentence of the Sharia Court" was spread in Chechnya according to which the editor-in-chief of the Groznensky Rabochiy newspaper, Musa Muradov, and all the men - contributors to the newspaper were condemned to death. As it turned out later, that was a "joke" of Russian special services. However we all know everybody engaged in public and human rights activity in Chechnya, first of all, activists of the Information Center of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship, are subjected to real threats.

The Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations is a non-government organization, which is not engaged in politics. Our work is connected with the observance of legislation of the Russian Federation and the CIS counties and of international law, and above all, of the regulations concerned with human rights. Thus we consider the attempts to intimidate our workers a wish to discredit our work. We suppose the part of law-enforcement agencies that is not involved in the dissemination of these threats must take measures to protect the citizens' rights."