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II. Recommendations

To the Government of the Russian Federation

Stop human rights violations in counterinsurgency operations

• Immediately stop the practice of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, abductions, and other abuses perpetrated in particular by security services, military, and law enforcement agencies.
• Inform all detainees immediately of the grounds of detention and any charges against them. Inform the families of detained persons of their detention, and the reason for and location of the detention. Allow families of detained persons regular contact with detainees.
• Require all personnel on search-and-seizure operations to identify themselves and provide their military, law enforcement, or security branch affiliation.

Ensure accountability and transparency

• Ensure meaningful accountability mechanisms to bring perpetrators of serious violations to justice and ensure transparency regarding investigations and/or prosecutions undertaken, including their outcome.
• Conduct thorough and independent investigation of all killings that have taken place and may take place in special operations. In doing so, adhere to the UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal, Arbitrary and Summary Execution.
• Foster a favorable climate for journalists and human rights defenders to do their work in the region.
• Put an end to disproportionate restrictions on freedom of assembly in Ingushetia and stop harassment of organizers of public protests.

Legal reform

• Amend the counterterrorism legislation to:

o Ensure everyone detained is promptly charged with an offense or released;

o Establish clear limits on the duration and territorial boundaries of a counterterrorism operation within which the security services may restrict fundamental rights and freedoms;

o Establish principles of proportionality for imposing restrictions on fundamental rights and freedoms during counterterrorism operations;

o Ensure that lethal force is only authorized when absolutely necessary and that all security and law enforcement officers permitted to use lethal force are adequately trained to understand and respect the standards on when lethal force may be used.

• Sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

Ensure access to the region for international monitors

• The Russian government should recognize and commit to respecting the terms of reference of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, whom the Russian government issued a long-awaited invitation in 2006. The special rapporteur should be allowed to meet in private with detainees held on accusations of involvement in insurgency in Ingushetia and should have unfettered access to detention facilities in the North Caucasus where these detainees are held.¹
• Issue an invitation to the UN Working Group on enforced and involuntary disappearances, which has a request pending with the Russian government.
• Issue an invitation to the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, in full agreement with the mandate’s terms of reference.
• Issue an invitation to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the situation of human rights defenders, in full agreement with the mandate’s terms of reference.

To Russia’s International Partners

• Governments, in particular those of European Union member states and the United States, should advance the recommendations contained in this report in multilateral forums and in their bilateral dialogues with the Russian government.
• Call for the Russian government to provide access to international monitors to the region, including the UN special rapporteur on torture and the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
• Urge Russia to fully implement rulings handed down by the European Court of Human Rights regarding violations in Chechnya, an instrumental step for preventing such violations from being perpetrated more widely in the North Caucasus.

To the Council of Europe

• The Parliamentary Assembly should put the developing human rights crisis in Ingushetia on its agenda with a view to adoptinga resolution acknowledging the deteriorating situation in Ingushetia and calling on Russia to stop human rights abuses in Ingushetia, hold the perpetrators accountable, and ensure that any law enforcement operations conducted in Ingushetia conform with Russian and international law.
• The Secretary General should call on the Russian prosecutor’s office to fully investigate abuses committed by military, security, and police forces in Ingushetia, including extrajudicial executions, abductions, enforced disappearances, and torture. The Secretary General should insist that these investigations fully comply with the standards for investigations into alleged human rights violations developed in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.
• The Commissioner for Human Rights should visit Ingushetia to address the deteriorating human rights situation in the republic.
• The Committee for the Prevention of Torture, which visited Ingushetia in the spring of 2007, should put repeat periodic visits to the region on its agenda.
• All relevant Council of Europe bodies should urge Russia to amend the 2006 Counterterrorism law to bring it into full conformity with Council of Europe standards.

A family home after an FSB raid in the village of Chemulga, Ingushetia. © 2007 Human Rights Watch

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