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Chechen
Women Block Highway to Protest Arrests By Russian Army
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| “This
demonstration is the result of our despair. We have had enough
of being passive while we are being killed, enough of extortions
by the military,”
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ASSINOVSKAYA,
Chechnya, July 17 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - About 100 women
Tuesday, July 16, blocked the federal highway linking the Chechen
capital Grozny and the neighboring republic of Ingushetia to demand
the release of five men arrested the previous day by the Russian army.
Federal
troops staged a search operation overnight Monday, July 15, in the
villages of Sernovodsk and Assinoskaya after Chechen rebels shot and
killed two pro-Russian Chechen policemen and wounded five others in
Achkoi-Martan, in southwestern Chechnya, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
“The
soldiers entered our home at 3:00 a.m. They searched our house from
top to bottom, after which they took my 17 year-old son,” said one
of the protesters, Liouba Israilova, a resident of Sernovodsk.
“We
don’t know what to do and to whom to turn for help,” she said.
“This
demonstration is the result of our despair. We have had enough of
being passive while we are being killed, enough of extortions by the
military,” said another protester and Sernovodsk resident, Mariam
Arsanoukaeva.
Mutuch
Gazilyev, 66-year-old Chechen, said Russian soldiers entered his home
during the night and was handcuffed and blindfolded and taken away,
AFP reported.
“I
only regret one thing, that is to be no longer young. If I was still
young, I would join the underground without hesitation,” said
Gazilyev, who was released later the same night.
The
Chechen village of Assinovskaya has previously been subjected to
atrocities committed by the Russian army.
The
U.S.-based newsletter, Chechnya Weekly, reported on its website that
in early July 2001 Russia stepped up its “mopping-up operations”
against Chechnya’s civilian populace, thereby prompting a new
large-scale exodus of refugees into Ingushetia.
The
operations were conducted in two villages - Sernovodsk and
Assinovskaya -located on the border with the Ingush Republic that had
previously been designated “safe zones” for refugees, the Weekly
quoted U.S. daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Times as saying.
“They
put up a tent in which they tortured people with electric shocks,”
Liza Musaeva, director of the Ingush office of the human rights
organization Memorial, told the LA Times.
“They
were also beating people up outdoors, right under the sun. We have
spoken to people whose bodies bear knife and bayonet cuts. One person
even had a cross carved on his back.”
Human
rights groups asserted that many of the civilians who had disappeared
in the sweeps had then been summarily executed and that the aim of the
operations appeared to be collective punishment. Both practices, of
course, constitute war crimes, the LA Times had reported July 7, 2001
Russian
tanks invaded Chechnya in October 1999 and they have remained there
ever since. Officials in the province report almost daily bombings and
shootings.
Over
4,000 Chechens are believed to have died in fighting since the Russian
army launched its offensive.
Several
governments and international rights organizations have consistently
protested to Moscow since it launched its campaign of artillery and
air strikes against Chechnya, killing several thousand civilians and
sending some 200,000 fleeing to neighboring republics, according to
Chechen officials.
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