VIENNA, January 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Thursday, January 23, slammed Russian for refusing to extend the mandate of the OSCE mission in Chechnya and the U.S. for the surveillance system adopted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Following tough negotiations with Russian officials in a last-ditch attempt to extend the OSCE mission, the U.S. announced that negotiations proved futile.

The U.S. told a meeting of the 55-nation OSCE's permanent council in Vienna that it was "deeply disappointed by the recent Russian decision to close the OSCE assistance group in Chechnya," Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The U.S. delegate to the security body implicitly acknowledged defeat by calling for the mission to be "allowed to close in an orderly way".

For their part, other OSCE members lambasted Russia for closing the OSCE mission in Chechnya and signaled they had lost hope that it would change its mind.

"A continued OSCE presence in Chechnya has now become impossible," Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, new OSCE chief, said.

The OSCE Assistance Group to Chechnya was established by the OSCE Permanent Council on 11 April 1995 and took up its duties on 26 April 1995.

The OSCE mandate had expired on December 31, 2002. Afterwards, the Russian government said it had no plans to renew the mandate.

Without the OSCE there is no permanent international presence in the war-shattered republic.

OSCE Censures the U.S. Surveillance on Books, Newspapers

At the same meeting, OSCE member states also lashed out at the restrictions on freedom of expression and the surveillance system adopted by the U.S. in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

U.S. government surveillance of the books and newspapers its citizens are reading is a threat to freedom, the OSCE charged.

"[U.S.] Governmental prerogatives are being used in a way that might intimidate citizens from exercising their right to freedom of expression," stressed Freimut Duve, the OSCE's expert on freedom of expression.

Duve slammed the FBI and the U.S. immigration service for carrying out surveillance of public library registers, newspaper subscriptions and book purchases.

"This goes much too far," Duve told a press briefing at the 55-member security body's headquarters in Vienna.

He said the two agencies have been keeping tabs on citizens' reading matter under the Patriot Act, adopted in 2001 to tighten security, and that it was "being done in secrecy."

"Booksellers claim that book buyers' names are listed and booksellers are informed that they are not allowed to inform the buyers.

"If you buy a book that is very critical of the government, everything is listed if you pay by card and you can be identified.

"It is the first example in history where we have not only to look at the untouchable right of the writer but of the reader," he charged.

He warned that there was a danger that "others may copy" the United States and said there was a "lot of concern about Britain" at the OSCE.

On October 26, 2001, President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act (USAPA) into law.

The law gives new powers to both domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies and have eliminated the checks and balances that previously gave courts the opportunity to ensure that these powers were not abused.