Complaints of victims of 2004 Beslan terror communicated by ECtHR

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has communicated to the Russian Federation seven complaints against violation by the state the rights to life and effective remedy in respect of acts and inaction of the authorities before, during and after the hostage-taking at School No. 1 in Beslan on September 1, 2004. The whole proceeding was awarded the name "Tagaeva and others versusRussia and six other complaints".

Relatives of those who perished in the terror act in Beslan had applied for help to the ECtHR back in 2007. The applications were signed by 89 victims. As stated then by Ella Kesaeva,the representative of the public organization "Voice of Beslan", the complaints demanded to conduct an objective investigation of all the circumstances of the terror act and death of the hostages.

On April 10, 2012, the ECtHR communicated the complaints of Beslan victims to theRussian Federation. It means that the respondent State was officially informed about the complaints; the court asked the parties to the proceedings a number of questions; when answered, they will ease assessing the complaints on the merits. The Court has also requested from the state to provide copies of the available case materials. This was explained on the website of the lawyer Oleg Anischik, who writes about filing complaints against Russiato the ECtHR.

The proceedings officially named "Emma Lazarovna TAGAYEVA and Others against Russia and six other applications" have united, according to the data released on the ECtHR's website, 447 complaints of the applicants, including Emma Tagaeva, the head of the all-Russian public organization "Voice of Beslan", and Susanna Dudieva, the head of the North-Ossetian public organization – the Association of victims of terror acts"Beslan Mothers".