STRASBOURG, France. June 22 (Interfax) - Russian human rights activists have complained about the human rights situation in Russia's North Caucasus
"It is very important that the Russian authorities should realize that stabilization in that region is impossible without strict observance of human rights," the leader of Russian human rights group Memorial, Sergei Orlov, told reporters on Monday at the headquarters of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
The agenda for Tuesday's session of PACE includes a report by Dick Marty of Switzerland on the human rights situation in the North Caucasus and a vote on a draft resolution on the issue.
Orlov highly valued both the report and the draft resolution.
"The report very accurately records the gravest and most painful problems of that region, specific causes of human rights violations, and dangers that will be in store for Russia if it continues its current policy," Orlov said.
At the same time, he pointed out positive developments. "We see it as a unique situation that the Russian president has repeatedly made public statements that he is anxious about the situation in the region. It is a unique situation that, as it seems to us, the Russian delegation is prepared to vote for this resolution," Orlov said.
Yekaterina Sokiryanskaya, also of Memorial, complained about a "horrifying human rights situation" in Dagestan, a republic bordering Chechnya. Twenty-two persons were abducted in Dagestan last year, nine people were killed and four went missing, she said. "And those are by far not complete statistics."
In 2010, Dagestan has seen a new outbreak of human rights violations, Sokiryanskaya said. "In March, 30 abductions were recorded there. A rally by local people against that was brutally suppressed. People were getting kicked and beaten with rifle butts," she said.
She added that, after Marty visited Dagestan in March, there were reprisals against local lawyers and ordinary people who had told him about instances of violence.
She said, however, that there had been "positive trends" in Dagestan after a new president was appointed in the republic in February 2010 and in Ingushetia, another republic bordering Chechnya.
The head of another Russian nongovernmental organization, the Committee Against Torture, Igor Kalyapin, said "there is no investigation under way of crimes committed in the Chechen republic" and blamed this on the Chechen authorities.
"Law enforcement officials are afraid to send interrogation summonses to members of units that report to [Chechen] President Ramzan Kadyrov," he said.