GROZNY, Russia (AP) – Chechnya’s newly installed, Kremlin-backed president accused federal authorities of torturing detainees, echoing claims that have long been made by Russian and international rights groups.
Ramzan Kadyrov’s comments Friday appeared to be an attempt to boost his popularity as well as to deflect blame from his paramilitary security force, which have faced long-standing accusations of abductions, torture and other abuses.
On Tuesday, a European anti-torture committee said Chechnya was plagued by torture and unlawful detentions and that human rights violations are rarely investigated.
“It is clear that investigations into cases involving allegations of ill-treatment or unlawful detention are still rarely carried out,” the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture said in its report. “This can only contribute to a climate of impunity,”
The report highlighted, among other things, a unit known as ORB-2, a unit of the federal Interior Ministry’s southern district.
Kadyrov echoed statements about inmates at a detention facility controlled by ORB-2 in the town of Urus-Martan, saying they were “systematically subjected to torture.” He said regional prosecutors had opened an investigation into the situation at the facility.
“We must solve the problem, because the torture and humiliation there are a blatant violation of human rights,” Kadyrov said, according to a statement released by his office.
There was no immediate reaction to the comments by federal officials.
Kadyrov became president earlier this month after Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed Alu Alkhanov and tapped Kadyrov to replace him. The nomination was quickly approved by the regional legislature.
Kadyrov, 30, is credited with overseeing a reconstruction boom that he administered as the region’s prime minister. The capital, Grozny, is being transformed from a moonscape of rubble and shattered buildings.
The reconstruction program has been at the heart of a Kremlin strategy to crush rebels, but critics say the alleged abuses by Kadyrov’s security forces and by Russian and Chechen police and soldiers severely undermine attempts to bring order to Chechnya.
Analysts say Putin has entrusted Kadyrov with power in part because he is seen as the only person who can keep large numbers of former rebels under control. Many former rebels now serve in the police and security forces.
Kadyrov is the son of Chechnya’s first pro-Moscow president, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in 2004.
Two wars in Chechnya over the past dozen years between Russian forces and separatist rebels who increasingly voiced militant Islamic ideology left much of the republic in ruins. Major offensives died several years ago, but small clashes continue and rebels attack Russian forces with booby-traps and remote-detonated explosives.
The Council of Europe torture committee report also said that the Russian government refused to respond to its findings and failed to cooperate with the committee, which has unlimited access to all detention facilities in the Council of Europe’s 46 member states, including Russia.
“The Russian authorities consistently refuse to engage in a meaningful manner with the (committee) on core issues. Detailed recommendations have been made by the committee. … To date, they have received at most a token response and in many respects have quite simply been ignored,” the report said.
An estimated 100,000 civilians, soldiers and insurgents have died in Chechnya in the two conflicts since 1994.
