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Amnesty International slams Russers over Chechnya...
Torture, rapes and âdisappearancesâ are common in Russiaâs legal âclimate of impunity,â international human rights group Amnesty International charged in a report published Tuesday, October 29. What timing! Drafted last June, the reportâs publication coincides with a major campaign by Amnesty to highlight the discrepancy between the human rights protection enshrined under international and Russian law and the reality of widespread abuse. The 125-page report, entitled âRussian Federation: denial of justice,â focuses on âspecific and serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Russian law enforcement and security forces.â They're not being gentle enough fighting a war started by vicious Islamists and banditti and financed by an external enemy... In Russia there is a âreality of widespread human rights abuses committed by agents of the state and private individuals or groups (non-state actors) in a climate of impunity,â the report said. In Chechnya, there's a reality of widespread mindless violence by Islamists, aided and abetted by Arab and other foreign mercenaries. Maybe Amnesty would like to address that, too? Ethnic minorities, particularly Chechens, âhave been stereotyped by Russian law enforcement officials as terrorists, drug dealers or other types of criminal,â said the report, which contained a long section on human rights violations in Chechnya. Y'know, that's the thing about stereotypes: so often they're based on empirical data. An individual isn't necessarily a participant in the stereotype, but a significant percentage of the population often is. That's how the stereotype grows, whether it's a good stereotype or a bad one... âAmnesty International has actively researched numerous, consistent and credible reports that Russian forces (in Chechnya) have been responsible for widespread human rights violations such as âdisappearancesâ, extrajudicial executions and torture, including rape,â the report said. There've also been a number of prosecutions by the Russians of members who've engaged in that sort of activity, showing that the stereotype held by Amnesty has some basis. Last week a group of 50 crazed killers, both men and women, claiming to belong to the Islamists' 29th Division, took close to 800 people hostage in Moscow, which shows that the Russers' stereotype of the Chechens has some solid basis. My own stereotypical Amnesty International member and/or researcher is an ass who sucks up to crazed killers, dictators, and various other scumbags, which also seems to have a solid basis. Guess we're three for three, aren't we? Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-10-29 |
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