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TITLE: Detained Russian Reporter Says She Found Chechnya "Filtration Camp" |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: Agence France Presse |
DATE: February 23, 2001 |
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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 rebel 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, 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. ((c) 2001 Agence France Presse) END |