Six months passed after an act of aggression in Nalchik but citizens still live in fear

Six months passed after an act of aggression in Nalchikbut citizens still live in fear. They are attacked by their own police. With inexplicable cruelty policemen avenge with peaceful population, main them, cut off fingers and make them confess to a crime, otherwise – kill.

Till present moment in Kabardino-Balkaria proceed detentions in connection with October attack on power structures. Chronicles of arrests are dazzling with messages – one worse than the other. Thus one of the arrested is 24-years old inhabitant of village Verkhny Kurkuzhin who was seized at the corner of Tolstoy Street and Lenin Avenue ostensibly carrying Makarov gun stolen during attack on department of State Drugs Control in Nalchik in December last year. Post factum: any weapon found by policemen in Nalchik is at once qualified as belonged to the department of State Drug Control (no matter what it is – bomb-thrower, tank or plane), it is done notwithstanding the fact that representatives of the department mentioned officially declared that the most part of the weapon withdrawn after October events does not belong to Service.

To the present moment according to official version more than 2000 people suspected in participation in armed rebellion have undergone checking. Fifty one from them were arrested. They were charged under several clauses simultaneously. The heaviest one is terrorism. A lot of people detained by police simply disappeared. The Office of Public Prosecutor refuses to raise criminal deals on the fact of people disappearance. In all cases the accusatory base is based on confessions of arrested people or evidences of law-enforcement officers stating that they supposedly saw someone somewhere. Legal experts meanwhile raise alarm. Statements about mass repressions and tortures in Kabardino-Balkaria are heard at the international level. Concern over unconstitutional methods applied by law-enforcement officers in relation to citizens arrested was expressed in the special report of the organization "Human Rights Watch". Lawyers of some people suspected are being consistently discharged of work. "All confessions made by my client as well as by the majority of other arrested people are beaten out under tortures",- says Inna Komissarova – the lawyer of the former American camp prisoner Ghuatanamo Rassul Kudaev.

Thus "Газета" has published photos of arrested persons. Photos were made in cabinets of Ministry of Internal Affairs of KBR three weeks after arrest. One can clearly see traces of interrogations on faces and bodies of all arrested persons. According to other lawyer - Larissa Dorogova - after October, 13th the horror which people feel is intensifying. "Everyone lives in fear because he is waiting that any minute their son can be taken away. No one is interested if you are guilty or not. It looks like mass repressions" – Dorogova says.

Larissa and her children are exposed to numerous attacks. She became the first lawyer discharged of business management on events on October, 13th. To the request of Dorogova to let her enter the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for a meeting with the inspector Kabardian policemen answered: "It’s a pity Yermolov can’t cope with all of you".

The majority of those who has got out alive – out of police station walls – prefer to keep silent meanwhile police is in its own way interpreting the history of colonization of Kabardians by General Alexey Yermolov. The freshest example can be illustrated by the history happend with 26-years old young man who lives in Volny Aul – a village situated in the suburb of Nalchik. He was arrested at home in the presence of his relatives and neighbours. Policemen threw a black package on his head, drew it around his neck and in such state turned him out of a yard. Day later he was found in a forest with nymerous traces after beating, electric and cigarette burns, with scorched nails and half cut off little finger. The victim and his relatives categorically refuse to hire a lawyer. Motivation is simple and clear – he will be killed. Relatives of those who have been already killed are also afraid to talk to the journalists or legal experts.

In the morning of the 14^th of October policemen took away the son of Betala Dzagalova - Boris. In a day Betala was invited to a mortuary for identification. The son did not have a half of the face. Father was told that Boris was killed on the street, in his hands he had weapon. On the next Monday after the talk between Dzagalovl and journalists on a theme of policemen cynicism he was seriously warned by people from building situated at the corner of Nogmova Streetand Lenin avenue. Dzagalov refuses to meet press any more.

Boris Dzagalov is not the only one whose corpse doesn’t fit in into the official version of Ministry of Internal Affairs. Saur Psanukov was arrested on the 14^th of October. Police says that he jumped out of the window, but it’s not possible as all the windows in this building are cancellated. The body of Psanukov is disfigured, evident traces after the tortures which were after painted with brilliant green can be easily seen. Here you are another case: on the 18^th of October Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kabardino-Balkaria spread a statement that somewhere in suburban forestof Nalchikthey found the corpse of one of the militants – Edward Ahmetov. On the photo wounds are also painted with brilliant green. The day before it the mother of Edward was seen near the building of Office of Public Prosecutor of KBR. She was crying and telling to witnesses that her son had been just killed in reanimation.

Till the present time a lot of people gather near the building of republican Office of Public Prosecutor hoping that the bodies of their relatives will be given to them. Due to the false evidence of one of the policeman who dies later (probably was killed) in October, 2005 police arrested the senior son of the known person in republic - the announcer of republican radio Alija Pshigotizhev. Charges were not proved to be true and the guy was let out, however, after that disappeared. One more believer disappeared in the end of March - a young Moslem by the name of Аеus. He was a seller of Islam books in Cathedral mosque in Nalchikand had no relation to the events happened in October. Though such facts are of no interests to policemen.

On 8^th of November, 2005 the group of legal experts including members of President’s Council engaged in assistance to development of institutes of a civil society and human rights - Lyudmila Alekseeva and Svetlana Gannushkina together with representatives of the emigrant organizations Forum, the All-Russian social movement "For Human Rights", public Committee for a freedom of conscience and others made an appeal to the public in which they accused heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of an aggravation of situation in Kabardino-Balkaria.

"Every day more and more new details about punishments in Kabardino-Balkaria come in the light. First of all these are stories about punishments which take place in Nalchik and its suburbs which are carried our under a kind of struggle against religious radicals: numerous arrests and abductions, tortures aiming to get recognitions, - it is spoken in the appeal – Evidences of monstrous humiliations, tortures and excruciations which police and officers of Ministry of Internal Affairs of KBR practiced under a pretext of struggle against a vahhabism even before tragic events of the 13th-14^th of October in Nalchik”. Alekseeva and Lev Ponomarev - executive director of social movement “For human rights" - who also signed this appeal in summer of 2005 visited Kabardino-Balkaria and after returning to Moscow addressed to authorities with the warning that actions of law enforcement authorities of the republic provoke people who are not Moslem to active actions.

Plenty of people including journalists saw that bodies of those who participated in attack of office buildings in Nalchikwere disfigured, the most part of wounded and arrested people were killed on a place. On the majority of bodies there were numerous bullet apertures in the field of a neck and heads that confirms that participants were finished off, the question of detention and further investigation simply was not put. The one who saw the corpses of victims loaded into the trailers was horrified and shocked. Young bodies were loaded and piled against each other with neglect and blasphemy. One could see corpses with traces of the tortures, the burnt genitals and faces, traces of tortures on extremities could be seen. All this confirms that many of them before death were exposed to severe tortures. In trailers could also be found bodies of those who were mot related to the events, they were simply written down in the lists to increase the number of killed militants.

Witnesses tell that the majority of innocently killed citizens died because of chaotic police shooting. Few are those relatives who got an opportunity - for money or protection - to get into the trailers to identify bodies of their kins and ransomed them. People assorted bodies by themselves because nobody agreed to help them. Some citizens made photos of what could be seen in those trailers with corpses. These photos horrify. Video cassettes and DVD disks with records of tragic events are passing from hands to hands in the country, they show basically the office buildings which undergone the impact, corpses of rebels laying on the ground in large quantities. These films are consciously spread among peaceful citizens by law-enforcement authorities for intimidation. Losses of police are not embodied in these films, as such purpose was not put at the moment of shooting.

It could be said that Russian law-enforcement authorities in North Caucasian republics try to revive barbarous customs - murders and tortures of otherwise-minded whom they find in Moslems. Those who do it call themselves Moslems, were born in Muslim families and wish to be buried as Moslems. However, it does not prevent them from beating of their own coreligionists and shout to them: " Where is your Allah? Why doesn’t he rescue you?!".

According to evidences of citizens in October, 2005 the whole city was full of representatives of various military departments from different countries including Russia. The last were notable for their correctness and politeness. In contrary Kabardian policemen making use from the situation let themselves various excesses. People who didn’t understand the reason of tragic October events thinking that the guilt is completely on Moslem at seeing such actions which touched their own interests as well as interest of their relatives began to look at the situation from another point of view.

It’s not a secret that many policemen retired from law enforcement authorities. None of the normal human being can’t stand that was happening in police chambers of Nalchik. Did situation change after resignation of Minister of Internal Affairs Hachim Shogenov? It is possible to say that most likely - no. The authorities simply made a castling. They appointed an unknown colonel from Adyghea in connection with whom there are certain fears that he will carry out a role of the wedding general. Shogenov is still in power, now he is supervising the work of law enforcement block in KBR government. Therefore to hope in justice and understanding from the part of local authorities is more than silly and useless.

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