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Chechen Disappearances
Displaced Chechens living in Ingushetia have been told they must all return to Chechnya by the end of September 2003. The Russian government cites as advances the March 2003 constitutional referendum and forthcoming Presidential elections scheduled for October 5, 2003.
But many Chechens still fear for their safety. Among their fears are extra-judicial killings, torture, and disappearance. In fact disappearances in Chechnya have increased over the past year, and Russian security forces are extending the practice to reach Chechens in Ingushetia.
The use of "disappearances" to terrorize a population is at least as old as the Holocaust. In a December 7, 1941, decree, Adolf Hitler ordered that people resisting German occupation simply disappear into the "Night and Fog." Most were sent to concentration camps.
In 1992, the United Nations General Assembly declared enforced disappearances "an offence to human dignity" and condemned the practice "as a grave and flagrant violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." According to the statute of the International Criminal Court, "enforced disappearance of persons" can be a crime against humanity. The statute defines "enforced disappearance of persons" as "the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time."
For more information about displaced Chechens and their security concerns, see the transcript of a COC event, "Chechnya: The Forgotten War?"
The Committee on Conscience has placed Chechnya on its Genocide Watch list.
http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/alert/chechnya/disappeared/
http://www.genocidewatch.org/ChechnyaGenocideWatch.htm