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Your Excellency,

The upcoming intersessional meeting of the Commission on Human Rights will be held exactly two weeks after the cruel attacks in the United States killed thousands of people and left the world profoundly shaken. This was an assault not merely on one nation or one people, but on principles of respect for civilian life cherished by all people. It was a strike on the most fundamental principles guiding this Commission.

We urge you to condemn the attacks and to call on all governments to unite to investigate this crime, to prevent its recurrence, and to bring to justice those who are responsible.

The Commission must also help to assure that the responses to this atrocity are consistent with the principles of the rule of law. In this respect, we urge you to:

• demand that efforts to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice are characterized by the highest respect for human rights;
  
  
• demand that any actions undertaken in the name of combating terrorism, including military action, be conducted within international human rights and humanitarian law.

In case there is an armed conflict, monitors should be sent to the theater of conflict to observe respect for international humanitarian law.

Finally, we hope that the Commission will continue carefully to monitor respect for human rights in all states. Many states seek to justify grave human rights violations in the name of combating terrorism. The Commission must not weaken its scrutiny, now when it is most needed.

The intersessional meetings of the Commission are meant to review events and progress in the work of the Commission's mechanisms since the conclusion of the previous regular session.

In this context, we want to call your attention to one issue in particular: the desperate situation of the civilian population of the Chechen region of the Russian Federation. We attach a note detailing the most recent abuses in Chechnya documented by Human Rights Watch. We call on you to condemn the ongoing abuses and to demand that the government of the Russian Federation comply with your resolution 2001/24.

Wishing you a productive meeting on Tuesday,

Sincerely,

Kenneth Roth Executive Director	Joanna Weschler U.N. Representative