Our editors have received via e-mail another appeal to Slovakia’s Minister of Justice in regard to cancelling the extradition of two Chechen refugees.

Here is the appeal:

To: Minister of Justice of the Republic of Slovakia
Ms. Lucia Žitňanská

Dear Mrs.Minister,

Two citizens of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Ali Ibragimov and Anzor Chentiev, have been in prison in Slovakia since 2006 due to a arrest request from the Russian Prosecutor General’s office. On 14.09.2010, the Strasbourg court decided to extradite them to Russia while stating in the court’s decision “Russia has guaranteed to provide a fair trial and not use capital punishment”.

The Court did not consider their justified asylum application, which meant that these two men would not be “subject to persecution on the basis of ethnicity, religious beliefs or political dissent”.

The defense’s arguments as well as testimony given by human rights activists, including those from Russia, about the fact that there exists no justice on Russian territory and that citizens of Chechen nationality are subject to torture and humiliation in the Russian penal colonies and prisons, were not taken into consideration.

The articles of international conventions say, “States should not be expelling, deporting or extraditing persons to other countries where they face torture or ill-treatment. A state of war or a threat of war, internal political stability or any other public emergency may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

The state, which these Chechens will be deported to, has a widely accepted practice of torture. The judges themselves are not only accomplices in these crimes, but also complicit in the torture.

Ali Ibragimov and Anzor Chentiev took part in fighting under the command of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria President Aslan Maskhadov. After his death, they left the territory of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and became refugees.

They are in prison in Slovakia and for more than four years they have awaited their fates. But now they are being passed into the hands of Russian executioners…

In August 2010, a Chechen man, Arslan Duzhiev, hanged himself in Austria to protest against his extradition process to Russia. Before he arrived to Europe, he had been tortured and beaten by the Russian special services in a prison in Makhachkala. He chose to commit suicide rather than be sent back into their hands.

For almost twenty years, the world has witnessed two Russian- Chechen wars. The Russian jails are crowded with soldiers from the Chechen resistance movement; many of who died in Russian hands, unable to withstand the abuse. What was their crime? Only that they were defending their occupied homeland.

Dear Mrs. Minister, please show your humanity and philanthropy… and be fair…

Alla Dudaeva, widow of President of ChRI Dzhoxar Dudaev, Georgia
Maret Tsaroeva, doctor, France
Peter Khomyakov, Professor
Elena Maglevannaya, Finland
Sergey Kryukov, journalist, Russia
Said Khachukaev, writer
Boris Paramonow, UK
Burak Oztas, lawyer, France
Buvaysar Lomayev, Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
Mansur Isayev
Muslim Ediev, Austria
Salambek Amayev, France
Ruslan Kantaev, France
Aslambek Kantaev, France
Khasan Isaev, Norway
Akhmed Anry, Austria
Lechi Taipov, Austria
Vakha Banzhaev, Austria
Inessa Sholtz, Austria
Mamikhan Shamilev, writer, Samara (RF)
Musa Taipov, editor Ichkeria.info

*Text is opened to signature by the website Ichkeria.info, you may send your names to ichkeriainfo@gmail.com
**Text was translated by Waynakh Online and edited by Michael Capobianco