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TITLE: Rights Group Fears Totalitarian Tendencies in Russia |
AUTHOR: |
PUB: AFP |
DATE: May 13, 2001 |
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The Helsinki Group for Human Rights in Russia denounced Sunday the policy of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Chechnya and said that more fighting there might spell disaster for the population of the breakaway republic. "The continuation of the conflict could lead to the total extermination of the civilian population in Chechnya and to an increase in violence and crime in our country," the Helsinki Group said in an open letter to Putin. "Negotiations ought to centre on the mechanisms of a ceasefire and on the resolution of humanitarian problems in the region" it said. Moscow does not recognise the legitimacy of rebel president Aslan Maskhadov and refuses any negotiations with him. The Helsinki Group was created in 1976 to keep an eye on the application of human rights as defined under the 1975 Helsinki agreements. The rights watchdog also told AFP it was worried by the human rights situation in Putin's Russia. "The power is being formed in a totalitarian system led from Loubianka" Ernst Tcherny from the Organisation of Ecology and Human Rights said, referring to the headquarters of the security services. A human rights commission has been suppressed since Putin came to power and several Russian NGOs have been prevented from re-registering, according to Valery Borchchev from the Russian Helsinki Group. He said Putin -- who pardoned the American Edmond Pope, who had been sentenced to 20 years in a camp for spying -- had refused requests for the pardon of 3,000 Russians since December. "Putin is not an enemy of human rights: in so much as he is a former KGB agent he simply does not understand this notion" said Andrey Babuchkin, president of the organisation for civil rights. "The situation has been made worse with television station NTV's loss of independence" Babuchkin added. NTV, the main channel of opposition for the general public, passed April into the control of Gazprom the giant state-run gas company. "It was the only television station that spoke of the humanitarian situation and human rights in Chechnya," said Tatiana Kasatkina of the Memorial Organisation. According top a recent poll 51 percent of Russians are for negotiations with the Chechen rebels, marking a significant turn around in public opinion. END |