Waynakh Online editorial board have received via e-mail an appeal to Slovakia’s Prime Minister in regard to cancelling the extradition of two Chechen asylum seekers and granting them refugee status.

Here is the appeal:

To: Honourable Iveta Radicova,
Prime Minister of Republic Slovakia

Dear Madam,

We, at the American Association of Jews from Former USSR (state of Massachusetts) call on you personally and on the entire body of the Slovakian Court to reconsider and make a deeper investigation of the deportation cases of Mr. Ali Ibragimov and Mr. Anzor Chentiev, who were sentenced to deportation in Russia.

We are strongly convinced that the decision to deport the said men to Russia is a fatal mistake, based on wrong information and misunderstanding of the nowadays situation in the Russian Federation and particularly in the Chechen Republic.

“The end of antiterrorist operation”, declared by President Medvedev, who like his predecessor, Putin, uses this term as a coded name for the full-scale war (the second Russian-Chechen war), the Russian military launched against Chechnya, – did not mean the end of terrorizing Chechens. In both Chechen wars, close to 300,000 Chechens, including more than 40,000 children, perished so far” two generations of most devoted and, honest men were rooted out; thousands orphans were left behind. . And this declaration is a cynical and bad lie. The war in its most cruel, perverted and twisted form is continuing. It is not a civil war, as the Russians sometimes name it. It is resistance of the Chechen people against the Russian invaders, whose puppet Ramzan Kadyrov, covered by the Kremlin with complete impunity, imposed a kind of regime replicated Stalin’s Great Terror. He was given a free hand to complete his private “army” with some 5,000 guards who kill, kidnap, torture and terrorize the population. With the help of Kadyrov and Kadyrovits (Kadyrov’s “army”)”the Russian FSB (KGB) try to exterminate all honest and educated people in Chechnya, as NKVD did it in 1937-38. It can be called “to behead Chechnya”.

One after another more and more gruesome pieces of information continue to come from Chechnya in spite of killing or expelling almost all journalists and HR activists from the Republic.

Here is a short cut from a long list of crimes of Kadyrov-Putin regime (the most known cases), committed after Medvedev’s declaration and Kadyrov’s massive propaganda about peace, safety and even prosperity in Chechnya:

1.Natalya Estemirova: she was kidnapped quite openly at 10 a.m. June 15 2009, when she came out of her house to her work at the Grozny branch of Memorial (it had recently resumed its work in Chechnya after being expelled). Five killers, who drugged her into their car was in a uniform of Kadyrov’s police or other special units. Three of them were even without masks. In a few hours her body was found near Ingushetya border.

At this point we consider it worthy to quote a few sentences from the last dialog that the murdered January 14, 2009 in Vienna Umar Israilov had with one of his killers, named Arbi, at the presence of a third man:

-The Third Man: at home, they (Kadyrovits) openly kill people and do not even hide their faces behind the masks…
– Arbi: Yes, that really exists…

2.Soltaevs: A week after Estemirova’s murdering, two cousins Soltaevs, recognized just in the street two of the Estemirova’s killers. They rushed to Memorial to describe them. The next day one of them disappeared, and the other one was kidnapped and disappeared two days later, too. By chance, the kidnapping of one of the Soltaevs was somehow seen by a young man, who noticed where he was taken: it was a route towards Kadyrov’s “residence” in Hosi-yurt. He spread it. After a few days he noticed a spying on him, then a hunt. He tried to escape from Chechnya and asked for help. Unfortunately, we don’t know whether he was successful.

3.Malika Sadulaeva: Less, then a month after murdering of Estemirova, on August 10, 2009, two Human Rights activists, spouses Malika Sadulaeva and Alik Zhabrailov were kidnapped in a plain day from their office, put into a car and driven in a high speed away. Next day, their bodies with signs of tortures were found some 100 km away from Grozny.

Some two years ago the “attention” of Kadyrov’s regime was paid to those who returned from abroad. It doesn’t matter how they returned: voluntarily or forced, and whether they fought in Resistance or not. They all are persecuted.

4.Arthur Duzgaev, 21, came back to Chechnya in April 2009 after several years in Azerbaijan, to visit his grandmother and also to see in his own eyes whether or not he could return to his homeland, whether or not he could find a job back there. He had no fear because he never took part in any hostility, and he trusted the propaganda about “normalization” in Chechnya. However, a day after his arrival, someone knocked at his grandma’s house in Grozny, where he stayed. A man outside the door called Arthur “to talk for a minute”. When Arthur went outside, he was suddenly caught by several men, thrown into a car and taken away. The day later he was found dead; a gun and a pack of drug were found in his pocket. In the local newspaper the incident was reported as “a special operation to destroy a fighter who was killed in exchange fire.”

5.Alikhan Markuev, born in 1988, had the fate, similar to Arthur Duzgaev. His case was recorded by Memorial. An unknown man called to the organization’s office on October 19, 2009 and said that another Chechen resident, Alikhan Markuev, b. 1988, is in danger of Duzgaev’s fate. Markuev still used to fight in the Chechen resistance for a year but was pardoned (official amnesty) in 2008. On July 28 2009, he was taken from his house by the police of Argun city and disappeared. Memorial urgently let know Prosecutor General of Chechnya and the Interior Ministry of the republic about the threat for Markuev’s life. Despite to this warning, Markuev’s body with gun wounds was found on the outskirts of Serzhen-Yurt village. An automatic riffle was found next to him. The relatives were said that Markuev was killed as a “bandit”.

Now, let me turn to what happen with Chechens when they are detent in Russian (or Kadyrov’s) prisons and colonies:

6.Zubayr Zubayraev, born in 1980. This case has been spread around many countries, and is really unimaginable on its brutality and hatred. We have been monitoring it since the very beginning, desperately trying to save his live. The case of Zubayr Zubayraev, who, -on his naivety, – voluntarily returned home (in Chechnya) from Austria, having trusted Kadyrov’s propaganda about safety and prosperity there, In addition his mother was severely ill, and he hoped to help her in some way. We will quote only his medical condition after two and a half years in a high security colony. Before being sentenced, he was a hansom, tall, sportive young man, with a perfect body constitution.

Here is a quotes from a statement made by Interregional Procurator Office, City of Minusinsk, Krasnoyarsk region (Mr. Afanasyev A.V.):

“From 23.6.2009 to 10.7.2009 Zubayraev underwent the examination and treatment in the KTB-1 Krasnoyarsk [East Siberia-V.P.]

Diagnosis:
– osteochondrosis of the lumbar spine without disrupting functions; duodenal ulcer; mutilation;
– Residual effects of the transferred intracranial injury with minimal neurological symptoms;
– Post-traumatic epilepsy with generalized tonic-clinical seizures;
– Osteochondrosis of the cervical, thoracic and lumbar spine (disc hernia);
– Easy personality disorder in connection with mixed diseases”

And the final statement:
“According to the operational and discipline –monitoring departments, physical force and special treatment [read: tortures-V.P.] against Zubayraev in 2010 FBU-prison were not applied. The actions of the administration FBU-prison accepted as legitimate and justified “.

Zubayraev’s attorney E.V. Mazkevich add to this statement his own observations:

“Vision in both eyes deteriorated- in the words of Zubayraev- after injuries inflicted during torture and beating on the head;
– Missing teeth (knocked out by the prison personal during the tortures;
– Numbness face left side, that causes difficulties when eating;
– Pain in the right ear accompanied by bleeding;
– Pain in the spine in the cervical region and in the back spine;
– Increase in tumors below the ribs on the left side;
– Pain at the touch of neck (when one touches the back of the neck, Zubayraev loses consciousness);
– Left leg did not feel the physical effects from knee to foot, the right one from the hip to the foot;
– Moving with great difficulty using crutches and canes, without crutches and walking sticks can not walk;
– Pain in the heart after myocardial heart attack;
– Pain in the kidneys;
– sitting position can be achieved only if the left hand has a support (use of the crutch); in the absence of support sharp pain in the spine and loses consciousness.”

We don’t think that the experiments of Nazi doctor Mengele with Jews were much worse that the described situation with Zubayraev.

The similar “treatments” occur with every Chechen in Russian prisons and colonies in one or another form. There are plenty (thousands) of examples of the hellish attitude to Chechen prisoners.

7.Islam Taipov was sodomized by the trained dogs, and has all hid body in deep scars (exactly like in Nazi death camps during the WW2).

8.Zaurbek Talhigov was purposely injected with tuberculosis and Hepatitis B, and the others.

9.Rizvan Elbiev: This case, like the case of Zubayraev, we have been monitoring since 2006 and have very little success. He is now in critical condition.

Here is Rizvan Elbiev’s case in his own words (in the presence of both his lawyers, Mr. Abubakarov and Mr. Alekseenko):

“From Elbiev Rizvan Talabaevich, b.1949, prisoner in the pretrial facility SIZO-1, Grozny City

On September 12, 2006, I was transferred from the SIZO-1 to another pretrial facility, IBS ORB-2, in Grozny. On the same day, in the evening, a bag was put on my head and I was dragged to a torture chamber in the same facility. There I was severely beaten by people unknown to me who introduced themselves as employees of a certain “special unit from Moscow”. Speaking both Russian and Chechen, they insulted me with derogatory words. They attacked me from three sides with beatings until I fainted. When I regained consciousness I found myself lying on the floor. They attempted to suffocate me, shouting: “Die you bastard!” The torturing resulted in a partial loss of my vision. After that happened, they increased the torture. Two executioners tortured me at this time; one of them pressed my eyes while the other shook my head. It was terribly painful, it seemed to me that something exploded inside my head, and my eyes completely lost their vision. I fainted again and again. In addition, a unit of five or seven men, as far as I could tell, beat me with an object, perhaps, a plastic bottle filled with liquid. They beat me without interruption; when one “crew” got tired, another “shift” would come. They demanded that I take the blame for kidnappings and shooting deaths of Russian soldiers during the war in 1995 and 1996; also, they tried to force me to blame Akhmed Zakaev, one of the leader of the Chechen resistance. They said that if I fulfilled these demands they would cease torturing me. I refused, however, because I knew nothing of the alleged crimes committed by Zakaev nor did I kidnap or kill soldiers or Russian POWs. They tortured me all night long. Then, when they got tired, I was put into a position where I could neither sit down, nor stand up. I fainted again; my cellmates in ORB-2 told me that next morning, around 9 a.m., I was taken to the cell half-conscious. After three hours, I was put again in the torture cell, where all tortures were repeated. I remember very poorly what happened after this. I remember that somebody offered to give me a certain injection, after what I would be more “obedient”; however, I don’t know whether or not I was injected.”

I am writing these lines with shaking hands and I cannot think that a European country may send somebody to that Hell. The two men, Ali Ibragimov and Anzor Chentiev, were in Slovakia prison four years, without any seriously legal procedure. I understand that European prisons are not at all similar to Russian prisons, but I still don’t think they deserved it. All Chechens suffered a lot during the Chechen wars. They don’t deserve to suffer the second time. They escaped to Europe not for being put in prison on the request of Russian KGB and of course not for being send back to the Russian hell. All those, who resist the Russian aggression, are heroes. They are the same as the Europeans and the Russians themselves, who resisted the Nazi aggressions in the WW2. Obviously, the Russian leaders forgot the lessons of the history. But we hope that the Europeans didn’t.

We urge you again to reconsider these two cases and grant Mr. Ali Ibragimov and Anzor Chentiev the status of political asylum.

Sincerely,

Victoria Poupko
President
American Association of Jews from the Soviet Union (State of Massachussets)