Musayev, Labazanova and Magomadov v. Russia was the July 26, 2007, ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of the February 2000 Novye Aldi massacre in Chechnya, which unanimously held Russia responsible for violations of Articles 2 (right to life) and 13 (right to effective remedy) of the European Convention of Human Rights. The three applications, which the Court joined into one case, concerned the murders of 11 civilian persons committed during a rampage in the Chechen capital Grozny by the Russian OMON special police unit.
The European Court of Human Rights is a supranational or international court established by the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of the human rights provisions concerning civil and political rights set out in the Convention and its protocols.
The Novye Aldi massacre was a mass killing in which Russian federal forces summarily executed dozens of people in the Novye Aldi (Aldy) suburb of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, in the course of a "mopping-up" (zachistka) operation conducted there on February 5, 2000, soon after the end of the battle for the city. As a result of a deadly rampage by the special police forces, between 60 to 82 local civilians were killed and at least six women were raped. Numerous houses were also burned and civilian property was stolen in an organized manner.
Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a federal subject of Russia.
In its ruling, the Court said:
The killings had been committed in broad daylight and a large number of witnesses, including some of the applicants, had seen the perpetrators face to face. Their detailed accounts of the events had been made public by various sources. The relatives of the victims had demonstrated their willingness to cooperate with the authorities by allowing the exhumation and forensic analysis of the bodies and by forming an action group to coordinate their efforts. The injuries and the circumstances of the victims' deaths had been established with a sufficient degree of certainty. Numerous bullets and cartridges had been collected, some of them being suitable for identifying individual guns and even bearing serial numbers that allowed the origin of their production to be traced. Information about the alleged involvement of particular military units had been available to the prosecuting authorities no later than one month after the incident. Despite all that, and notwithstanding the domestic and international public outcry caused by the cold-blooded execution of more than 50 civilians, almost six years after the tragic events in Novye Aldy no meaningful result whatsoever had been achieved in the task of identifying and prosecuting the individuals who had committed the crimes. In the Court's view, the astonishing ineffectiveness of the prosecuting authorities in this case could only be qualified as acquiescence in the events.
The Moscow theater hostage crisis was the seizure of a crowded Dubrovka Theater by 40 to 50 armed Chechens on 23 October 2002 that involved 850 hostages and ended with the death of at least 170 people. The attackers, led by Movsar Barayev, claimed allegiance to the Islamist separatist movement in Chechnya. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War.
The Beslan school siege started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the illegal imprisonment of over 1,100 people as hostages, and ended with the deaths of at least 334 people. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were the Riyad-us Saliheen, sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya, and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons. As of December 2006, 334 people were killed, including 186 children.
OMON is a system of special police units of Federal Police within the National Guard of Russia, and previously Soviet and Russian Ministries of Internal Affairs. It was created as the special forces of the Soviet Militsiya in 1988, and then played major roles in several armed conflicts during and following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The term Bosnian genocide refers to either genocide at Srebrenica and Žepa committed by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995 or the wider ethnic cleansing campaign throughout areas controlled by the Army of Republika Srpska that took place during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War.
In Chechnya, mass graves containing hundreds of corpses have been uncovered since the beginning of the Chechen wars in 1994. As of June 2008, there were 57 registered locations of mass graves in Chechnya. According to Amnesty International, thousands may be buried in unmarked graves including up to 5,000 civilians who disappeared since the beginning of the Second Chechen War in 1999. In 2008, the largest mass grave found to date was uncovered in Grozny, containing some 800 bodies from the First Chechen War in 1995. Russia's general policy to the Chechen mass graves is to not exhume them.
The article details notable human rights violations committed by the warring sides during the second war in Chechnya. Both Russian officials and Chechen rebels have been regularly and repeatedly accused of committing various war crimes, including kidnapping, torture, murder, hostage taking, looting, rape, beheading and assorted other breaches of the law of war.
Russia incurred much international criticism for its conduct during the Second Chechen War, which started in 1999. The governments of the United States and other countries condemned deaths and expulsions among civilians. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) passed two resolutions in 2000 and 2001 condemning human rights violations in Chechnya and requiring Russia to set up an independent national commission of inquiry to investigate the matter. However, a third resolution on these lines failed in 2004. The Council of Europe in multiple resolutions and statements between 2003 and 2007 called on Russia to cease human rights violations. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) between 2005 and 2007 conducted legal cases brought by Chechens against the Russian government, and in many of these cases held Russia responsible for deaths, disappearances and torture.
The ICRC Hospital of Novye Atagi is an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospital in Novye Atagi, Chechnya, Russian Federation. It was evacuated in December 1996 when six members of the expatriate team were assassinated during an early morning raid by an unidentified armed group.
The reported bombing of Katyr-Yurt (Chechnya) occurred on February 4, 2000, when Russian forces bombed the village of Katyr-Yurt and a refugee convoy under white flags in an attempt to stop the breakout of the Chechen separatist forces from Grozny, killing or injuring hundreds of people. The village was also previously bombed by the Russians in 1995 and in 1996.
The Alkhan-Yurt massacre was the December 1999 incident in the village of Alkhan-Yurt near the Chechen capital Grozny involving Russian troops under command of General Vladimir Shamanov. The villagers claimed approximately 41 civilians were killed in the spree, while human rights groups confirmed and documented 17 incidents of murder and three incidents of rape.
The Staropromyslovsky massacre occurred between December 1999 and January 2000 when at least 38 confirmed civilians were summarily executed by Russian federal soldiers during an apparent spree in Staropromyslovsky City District of Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic, according to survivors and eyewitnesses. The killings went unpunished and publicly unacknowledged by the Russian authorities. In 2007, one case of a triple murder was ruled against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Shakhid Raduyevich Baysayev was a Chechen civilian who was forcibly disappeared after being detained by Russian special police forces on the outskirts of Grozny, Chechnya on 2 March 2000. His body was never found.
The Borozdinovskaya operation was a zachistka-type operation by Russian forces in Borozdinovskaya, Chechnya, on June 4, 2005, during the Second Chechen War. Members of the Special Battalion Vostok, an ethnic Chechen Spetsnaz unit of the Russian GRU, killed or disappeared 12 people in the ethnic minority Avar village of Borozdinovskaya, near the border with the Dagestan. Representatives of the Russian federal authorities expressed outrage over the incident, and the commander of the unit responsible was convicted.
Zura Bitiyeva was a locally well-known Chechen human rights activist who was extrajudicially executed by what is assumed to be a Russian government death squad in 2003 after she complained to the European Court of Human Rights of ill treatment during an earlier illegal detention. Three other members of her immediate family were also killed in the same attack.
The Samashki massacre was an incident which occurred on April 7–8, 1995, in the village of Samashki, at the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia. Numerous villagers died at the hands of Russian paramilitary troops, many of them reportedly drunk or drugged, under the command of Gen. Anatoly Kulikov. The incident attracted wide attention in Russia and abroad.
Baysayeva v. Russia was an April 5, 2007, European Court of Human Rights ruling in the case of forced disappearance of a Chechen man Shakhid Baysayev, which unanimously held Russia responsible for serious violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. The decision was the latest in a series of judgements against Russia in cases connected to the war in Chechnya.
Estamirov and Others v. Russia was a European Court of Human Rights ruling in the case of the February 5, 2000, Novye Aldi massacre in Chechnya, which unanimously held Russia responsible for violations of Articles 2 and 13 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The case was brought to the European Court by several members of the Estamirov family together with the British solicitor Gareth Peirce and the organization Russian Justice Initiative.
Russian war crimes are the violations of the law of war, including the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the Geneva Conventions, consisting out of war crimes and crimes against humanity, of which the official armed and paramilitary forces of the Russian Federation are accused of committing since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This also extends to include aiding and abetting crimes of proto-states or client states armed and financed by Russia, including Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic. These have included the summary execution of captured enemy combatants, the mistreatment of prisoners during interrogation (torture), and the use of violence against civilian non-combatants, including rape. Russia is the only country still involved in all post-Soviet wars in the 21st century Europe.
