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Chechnya "Filtration Camp" Found As Russia Targets Chechens In U.K.
MOSCOW, Feb 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Russian journalist detained by security forces in Chechnya said Friday she was arrested by soldiers who wanted to prevent her from writing about a secret "filtration camp" in Chechnya.
"On the territory of this regiment, in the settlement of Khatuni in the Vedeno region, rests the most brutal filtration camp in all of Chechnya," reporter Anna Politkovskaya said upon her release and return to Moscow on Friday.
"Of course, no European Council or [Kremlin] human rights observers are ever taken there," she told NTV television.
Western human rights observers, accompanied by Russian officials, have visited a number of so-called filtration camps used by federal troops to separate civilians from separatist fighters.
Chechens have reported regular abuses - including beatings, rape and murder - of civilians inside the camps, although federal troops deny all charges.
Western observers have not recorded any abuses during their official tours of the camps.
Politkovskaya claimed that it was Alexei Romanov, the commander of Moscow's 45th regiment, who had confirmed to her the existence of the camp, which includes pits dug out to hold Chechen prisoners.
"The commander was very frank. He himself is tormented by the situation he found himself in," she said.
But Romanov refuted her allegations, telling NTV that he had merely shown Politkovskaya the base's cesspools and pits freshly dug out for new cesspools.
Politkovskaya, who covers Chechnya for the liberal weekly Novaya Gazeta, was arrested Tuesday near Khatuni and accused of entering Chechnya without proper accreditation.
However, Politkovskaya said she had obtained the necessary permits for her journey and had the personal authorization of the prime minister of the pro-Moscow Chechen government, Stanislav Ilyasov.
She had earlier told reporters that Russian troops "accused me of obtaining secret information and threatened to shoot me."
On Friday, Russian military officials and Kremlin representatives on Chechnya dismissed Politkovskaya's claims.
"I receive a lot of information, but this is the first I ever heard" of such a filtration camp, President Vladimir Putin's human rights representative Vladimir Kalamonov told ITAR-TASS.
"This statement is being made by a journalists known for her peculiar view of events in Chechnya and her attitude towards the armed forces," a Kremlin spokesman on Chechnya told Interfax.
Meanwhile, the Russian government is asking British authorities to use new anti-terrorist laws to crack down on London-based groups suspected of aiding Chechen separatists, the BBC reports.
These groups are said to be recruiting mercenaries and raising money from Asian and African students attending the prestigious London School of Economics, according to Russia.
The enforcement of new British anti-terrorist laws against such activities are being requested, observers believe, due to Russia's inability to subdue separatists in 17-month campaign to root out "terrorists" in Chechnya.
Chechen separtists dismissed Russian fears that they would launch attacks Friday to mark the anniversary of Stalin's deportation of hundreds of thousands of Chechens 57 years ago.
"For Chechens, since Russian troops invaded our homeland, all holidays have become days like any other," a spokesman for separatist president Aslan Maskhadov said by telephone.
"We are not planning any actions to coincide with this or that particular date," he said. Russian security forces have been on heightened alert amid warnings separatists were planning armed actions to mark the deportation of 650,000 Chechens and Ingushis to Siberia and central Asia on February 23, 1944, at the height of the war against Nazi Germany.
The Kremlin's spokesman on Chechnya, Sergei Yastrzhembsky, said: "We have often drawn London's attention to various groups which fund Chechen terrorists and show open support for them."
Yastrzhembsky defined support as being anything from money to public relations. The Terrorism Act, which came into effect on Monday, makes it illegal for anyone in Britain to incite terrorism abroad.
The Act gives police increased powers to seize assets and arrest those they believe may be promoting terrorism outside Britain, says the BBC.
It was brought about after many foreign governments began complaining about the U.K. harboring groups that are conducting violent campaigns.
With the new laws, any acts of fundraising and open support of "terrorist" groups will lead to arrest.
Before the law went into effect, foreigners in Britain who may have been planning attacks abroad had the right to stay only if they could convince the courts they would be persecuted if they were sent home.
Meanwhile, the British government has been writing up a list of groups it considers are conducting "terrorist acts" as defined under the new legislation.
Once an organization is on the list, it is illegal to be a member of the group, support it financially, display its emblems or share a platform with a member at a meeting of three or more people, the BBC reports.
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