PROFESSIONAL INFORMATION   

The Center of Independent Journalists (Information center) for the Council of non-governmental organizations was established in 2002 by a group of Chechen independent journalists under the auspices of 11 public, human rights and children organizations of the Chechen Republic, members of CNO (Council of non-governmental organizations).

The activity of the Information centre has started in June 2002. At the same time the daily updated site of the organization (www.livechechnya.org) was opened as well. The idea of establishment of the independent Info-Center appeared after conduction of analysis of activity of human rights and public organizations covering the situation in Chechnya. It was the third year of the "counter terrorist operation" as a result of which thousands of Chechen citizens died, disappeared and became disabled, including old people, women and children. At that time, a number of public and human rights organizations, engaged in collection and distribution of facts of human rights violations in the Chechen Republic and Ingushetia, had been already working. However, in conditions of complete information blockade the discovered facts of crimes accomplished by militaries and employees of various structures could not give to the international community the full picture of the tragedy occurring in Chechnya.

In winter 2002, approximately in 2 months after we had opened our own and daily updated site, the provider of the site R.U. Mastak in Moscow refused to further cooperate with us due to the reason, that allegedly our site "bears anti-Russian character". Despite of it, we continued our work dispatching the information to the available addresses. Later, through the assistance of French colleagues ("Reporters without borders ") who had found a French provider for us, we managed to resume the work of our website. Until now they have been effecting payment for usage of the site on the place, and their assistance helps us to continue our daily work during last several years.

The main goal of the Info-Center is to collect and disseminate on the daily basis the information about event occurring in Chechnya, about facts of human rights violation taking place in the republic. From the date of establishment of the Information center for the Council of nongovernmental organizations maintained and continues maintaining constant contacts with various human rights and public organizations, among which are: the Center of extreme journalism, "Human Rights Watch", Human Rights Center "Memorial", "Civic Assistance Committee ", "Prime-News" agency, Prague Watchdog web-site in the Czech Republic, the Russian Anti-war movement, Japanese newspaper “Mainiti”, and etc. The information published by the Information Center is received by thousand recipients. There are 540 recipients receiving it in English.

We constantly receive letters of support from our friends and colleagues who express gratitude for the information which helps them to work effectively in their spheres: to investigate crimes, prepare reports, organize round tables, publish articles in newspapers, magazines, etc. For example, the Chechen branch of the human rights center "Memorial" and human rights organization "Human Rights Watch" conduct their own investigations of crimes and violence on the basis of the information received from the Information Center, and then use that material in court hearings.

Collection and distribution of the information about the situation in Chechnya is not the only activity carried out by the Information centre. During last few years the Info-Center participated in organization and carrying out of a number of conferences, 6 round tables, seminars and various forums, devoted to problems of human rights situation in Chechnya.

The organization prepared number of reports on the situation in the Chechen Republic. In March of 2007 the head of the Information centre Taisa Isaeva was invited to the international conference, which took place in Japan, in the city of Hiroshima. The report of the Information center on the situation in Chechnya and activity of journalists during military actions was incorporated into the book published by the Institute of Hiroshima. The director of the Info-Center was awarded the diploma of this Institute.

One more serious achievement of the Information center is gathering of material and preparation of the bulletin "Women and children: the right to life", which comprised of documentary stories of residents of the Chechen Republic about the cases of murders and violence of militaries over children and women. The bulletin will be published in two languages - Russian and English. The electronic version of the Bulletin is ready and the printed edition will be available shortly.

Speaking about the activity of the Info-center it should be noted, that in conditions of complete blockade, pressure from representatives of authorities and total fear of citizens before “a person with a gun”, it is difficult to collect the needed information. In particular, it relates to the mountain areas of the republic, which are regularly exposed to rocket bombing and artillery impacts from federal forces. The information about different facts of arbitrariness towards civilians should be checked and verified several times. Nevertheless, the activity of the Information centre proceeds on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, representatives of Russian and local authorities constantly emphasize, that the human rights situation on the territory of the Chechen Republic "is stabilizing", "has the steady tendency to improve". Indeed, to compare with the first years of “counter terrorist operation” the situation ahs improved. There are no large-scale air and artillery bombardments of cities and villages, in the past so-called "large-scale cleaning up operations" with blockade of settlements and sending to so-called "filtration camps" of all male population, there are fewer cases of extrajudicial executions and punishments.

But the violence over the people, arbitrariness and lawlessness are still the norm of life in Chechnya nowadays. Employees of the Information Center know it, because every day they receive information about illegally arrested, murdered, abducted and tortured citizens. The only thing that encourages them to continue their work is the desire to inform the world about the tragedy still ongoing in Chechnya.

BIOGRAPHIC  INFORMATION 

The initiative of creation of the Information site of Chechen nongovernmental organizations established to collect information on the situation in Chechnya belongs to several independent journalists who worked during divers times in the Chechen Republic. They all are people with different destinies, who were united by the desire to inform the international community about the real situation occurring in their Motherland.

The head of the Information centre of CNO Taisa Isaeva during the period of 1998 to 2001 headed the news agency "Chechenpress", the official body of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Being the military correspondent, she visited almost all districts of the Chechen Republic where the war activities were taking place. In winter of 2000 in one of such trips to Shatoy district, making a shooting, Taisa received a serious injury. She spent about two months in the mountain part of the republic, which was completely blocked by militaries. In 2001 she was detained by employees of the Russian special services and spent several days in one of the secret military prisons in Khankala base under Grozny.

The journalist and editor of the Info-Center Ruslan Zhadaev worked in 1995 as a volunteer of one of the local mass media. He received heavy wound during the bombardment of Grozny. Other employee of the Info-Center, the resident of Grozny, Natalia Gutarina, is Russian. She lost her mother during the military campaign.

Actually, each employee of the Info-Center has gone through his or her own tragedy, witnessed hecatomb of people and plenty of crimes committed by militaries (massive artillery and bombing attacks of densely populated areas of Grozny, bombardments of settlements and columns with refugees and many other things). Probably, it affected on their decision to devote themselves to such difficult, very often, dangerous business, as information activity on the territory of Chechnya, where the "counterterrorist operation" has been going on during last seven years.

At the initial stage, employees of the Info-Center faced the whole range of apparently insolved problems.

On 12 January the office of the organization, located in the city of Nazran (Republic of Ingushetia) was stormed by Russian militaries wearing masks, armed with automatic devices and machine guns. Menacing with guns, they put 2 men and 4 women in the office on the floor facedown. The people in masks behaved extremely rude, they did not introduce themselves and did not explain the reasons of their actions. The premises underwent the unauthorized search, the employees were temporarily deprived of mobile phones, and the computer techniques were withdrawn and taken away "for check". After this incident, representatives of several Russian and international human rights organizations appealed the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Ingushetia with the request to solve this issue, however no reaction from representatives of the authorities had followed.

Several months after this event, in May 2005 one of the Russian sites published an article "Activity of terrorist groups in Internet". In this article the site of the Information centre was listed among the sites of "terrorist" and "separatist" orientation. It was done, in spite of the fact, that we always tried (and still try) to remain neutral while covering the situation in the Chechen Republic and we do not touch the politics. After appearance of this material the staff made its protest to the author of the article and the leadership of the site. However, there was no reaction to the application.

In February 2006 the office of the Info-Center of CNO was visited by a worker of ORB-2 (the Operative-searching bureau), the employees of which, in opinion of many legal experts, are involved in abductions, tortures and extrajudicial punishments above people. In private conversation he showed his interest in the work of the Council of nongovernmental organizations. He required the names of volunteers working on the territory of the Chechen Republic, and openly threatened the staff.

In April of 2007 the bank account of the Info-Center was closed without any reason. When the staff tried to resolve this issue, it was found out, that the Ministry of Justice lodged the lawsuit to the court with the request to liquidate the Information center. Thus, neither the tax service (which arrested the account), no the Ministry of Justice (which brought the case before the court) had found time to notify the leadership of the Info-Center or the Council of the nongovernmental organizations about their intentions. When representatives of the Ministry of Justice were proved the groundlessness of the actions, the new pretense was expressed against the Info-Center. The organization was told to submit the full report on the activity during 48 hours. Thus, besides the obligatory documents, we were exposed the additional requirements:

-         Indication of places and time of meetings with representatives of international and Russian NGOs;

-         The topics of discussions with them;

-         The list of the staff;

-         Copies of all financial documents;

-         etc.

When the required papers were submitted, the employee of the Ministry of Justice stated, that he would test the level of knowledge of our staff, including the translator. It is not clear, how and on what grounds of he wanted to make lustration of employees.

Later, the head of the Information centre received a call from FSS of the Russian Federation in the Chechen Republic inviting her for a meeting. After they ended the conversation, the employee of FSS said he would contact the director of CNO "in case of need".

Then, on 21 May we received a call from the Audit Chamber of Russia. The person, who introduced himself as an employee of the department on interaction with nongovernmental organizations, required the detailed information about the Info-Center, and also said that he would revert to us "if additional questions would arise".

On 4 June the office of the Info-Center was visited by an employee of Tax service of Ingushetia. He stated, that he was carrying out the commission of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to check the activity of the NGO. Now, the following charge was brought as the pretense to the work of the Info-Center – why, being on the territory of Republic of Ingushetia, the organization pays taxes in the Chechen Republic. Having taken the explanatory note from the director of the Info-Center, the representative of the Tax service left. Of course, he did not forget to warn, that probably he would contact us again.

The heightened attention of representatives of various power structures to the activity of the Information centre, most likely, is dictated by desire to find any pretext for closing the organization. Thus, if earlier representatives of various power departments applied methods of blackmailing and intimidation, now they have chosen different way, but quite effective one – search for any infringements in paying taxes, registration and implementation of information activity.

The confidence of rightness of the activity, ineradicable desire to convey the truth to the Russian and foreign community, aspiration to achieve by all accessible means of breakage of the information vacuum which is developed around Chechnya due to diligence of the Russian leadership, helped them to cope with many of those issues which considered as priority.

Year-by-year the work on the territory of the Chechen Republic becomes more and more difficult. Having 14 volunteers working in various districts of the Chechen Republic, the Info-Center, nevertheless, is not able to obtain the full picture of the facts of human rights violation. First of all, it is connected to the fact that many peaceful citizens who had become victims of arbitrariness of representatives of Russian and local employees of power structures, hide information about the incident, being afraid of prosecutions and any punitive measures towards members of their families. Therefore, not all cases of murders, extrajudicial punishments and kidnappings become property of publicity.

Besides, the volunteers of our organization working in the Chechen Republic are afraid to transfer information anticipating possible negative consequences. At the same time, to ensure safety of people, we often have to replace volunteers.

It should be noted, that absence of safety guarantees for the employees working in Chechnya is one of the main problems not only of the Information centre, but also of other human rights and public organizations, highlighting situation in the Chechen Republic.