Chechnya is located on Russia's south western border sandwiched between Ukraine, Georgia and Kazakhstan. The country and its people have been defined by war and the struggle for recognition; equal rights; and a decent standard of life. Chechens make up the largest ethnic group in the Caucuses but have faced numerous threats to their existence from pre-Tsarist times right up to the present day.

The Soviet Era:
Subsequent to the Revolution Soviet forces re-captured Chechnya and its neighbouring republics and created the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This was the first time in Chechnya's history that the country had received any form of official recognition of autonomy.

The central argument of the Chechnya Peace Forum is that something must be done to end the appalling human rights abuses that continue there. The reality is that disappearances, torture, and secret detention centres remain common place in Chechnya under President Ramzan Kadyrov's regime of fear and oppression.

Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was an out spoken critic of human rights violations in Chechnya and tirelessly reported on these horrific atrocities right up until her brutal murder in October 2006. During the continuing conflict nearly a million Chechens have been displaced and 100,000 killed - mostly civilians.

Just before the meeting of the G8 in Germany in the summer of 2007, President Putin invited prominent journalists to a private dinner to air his views on international affairs. Asked by The Times of London whether he considered himself to be a true democrat, he gave the following answer: "Of course, I am a pure and absolute democrat. But you know what the problem is - not a problem, but a real tragedy - I am alone. There are no other such pure democrats in the world. Since Mahatma Gandhi there has been no other." (Times 4th June 2007) The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is perhaps the greatest geopolitical miracle in history.

This report was published by the International Crisis Group on 3 June 2008. See pdf for full copy of the report. 

The North Caucasus (Russian) Republic of Dagestan has avoided large-scale violence despite its proximity to Chechnya but is now suffering from escalating street warfare. Several hundred local and federal security forces, administrators, politicians, ministers and journalists have been killed since 2003. The militant Islamist organisation Shariat Jamaat is responsible for much of the violence. Some of its leaders fought in Chechnya, but its extremist propaganda is also attracting unemployed Dagestani youth.

This is the latest issue of the biannual bulletin produced by The European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC). See pdf for full copy of the report. 

This Bulletin focuses on human rights issues and cases, which have relevance to the former Soviet Union, and particularly Russia and Georgia. 

This report, Anti-Terrorism Measures and Human Rights in North Caucasus: A Regional System of Torture, Forced Confessions and fabricated trials, was published by the The Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) in 2008. See pdf for full copy of the report.    

This report aims to provide an overview of developments in the human rights situation in five republics of the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation (Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan) from March 2007 until the present.

The Chatham House Commission on Europe after Fifty, chaired by Sir Stephen Wall, has published a major new report on Britain's role in Europe - A British Agenda for Europe: Designing Our Own Future.

Among other things, the report concludes that Britain should push for a more coordinated European energy strategy in order to be in a position to better handle Russia's dominant position within European energy markets.

This report was released on September 18th 2008

Two major elections in 2007 served as a run-up for the presidential vote in March 2008. Much pressure was exerted on the independent media, with journalists arrested on the edge of opposition demonstrations, independent newspapers shut down and some journalists were forcibly sent to psychiatric hospitals - all bad omens.

Read it online here...

The governments signatory hereto, being members of the Council of Europe,

Considering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10th December 1948;

Considering that this Declaration aims at securing the universal and effective recognition and observance of the Rights therein declared;