Aslan Maskhadov (file photo) Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov has allegedly ordered Chechen fighters to temporarily halt all offensive operations in the republic. A statement by Maskhadov published on a Chechen website says the cease-fire, due to last through 22 February, is a gesture of goodwill. Chechnya's Russian-backed government has dismissed the report, calling it a publicity stunt that cannot be trusted.
Ramzan Kadyrov at his father Akhmed's funeral Disappearances and kidnappings have plagued Chechnya for years. In the latest development, relatives of Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov have been abducted. The Chechen Prosecutor-General's Office has opened an investigation into the disappearance of the eight Maskhadov family members. The war between federal forces and Chechen resistance fighters is now in its fifth year, and it is civilians who suffer most. It is not known how many civilians have been kidnapped, tortured, or killed.
1 February 2005 -- A high-ranking Russian official said yesterday that police and soldiers are apparently taking part in abductions in Chechnya.
29 January 2005 -- A Russian report says nine servicemen have been killed by land-mine explosions in the war-torn republic of Chechnya.
28 January 2005 -- The Russian Defense Ministry today denied allegations that the negligence of several senior army officers helped Chechen militants seize a school in Beslan last September.
The long-awaited draft power-sharing agreement between Chechnya and the Russian federal government is finally ready for signing, Chechen State Council Chairman Taus Djabrailov announced on 18 January -- almost two years after Russian President Vladimir Putin dubbed it the logical next step in the process of "normalizing" Chechnya following the adoption in a controversial referendum of a new constitution for the region.
25 January 2005 -- The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has criticized a court decision against a Russian journalist.
21 January 2005 -- Russian President Vladimir Putin today called for "serious restructuring" of the state's programs to ensure security to citizens.
18 January 2005 -- The retrial of four Russian military officers accused of killing six Chechen civilians began today in Rostov-na-Donu in southern Russia.
17 January 2005 -- A local official in Daghestan said today the bodies of four gunmen killed in an hours-long firefight with Russian security forces in the Caucasus republic have been recovered from the ruins of a house destroyed in the assault.
Ramzan Kadyrov (center) at his father's funeral in May Since the death of his father, Akhmad-hadji Kadyrov, in a terrorist bombing on 9 May, 28-year-old Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has emerged as the most powerful and the most feared man in Chechnya despite his lack of formal education and the alleged involvement of his security force in the systematic abduction, torture, and execution of Chechen civilians.
More damage from Abu Ghurayb (file photo) Human Rights Watch says the U.S. policy of "coercive interrogations" of terrorism suspects and international inaction on the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region pose major threats to the global human rights system. In its annual report, the human rights watchdog calls for the Bush administration to appoint a special prosecutor to determine responsibility for the abuses in Iraq's Abu Ghurayb prison. But a defender of the administration says the rights group has exaggerated U.S. treatment of detainees and ignored the circumstances under which new interrogation policies were conceived. (Click here --> /featuresarticle/2005/01/e8a02914-5d5f-429c-bcea-62ed36d63042.html to see Part 2 of RFE/RL's report on the Human Rights Watch report.)
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