Andrei Sakharov Foundation Forums

On Friday morning, a personal letter of moderate Chechen president Aslan Maskhadov was handed over to the OSCE Presidency in Istanbul by the Society for Threatened Peoples International (STP), while OSCE staff denied entry to Maskhadov╢s spokesman, Zaid Abumuslimov, to the Istanbul conference due to alleged "security reasons". In his letter to the OSCE, President Maskhadov said that his people is subjected to genocide by the Russian regime, and pleaded that the Russian onslaught be stopped by the international community. The Society for Threatened Peoples International (STP) critisized that at the Istanbul Summit, the OSCE had abandoned basic OSCE principles of human rights and democracy. "The Summit compromise is not a breakthrough, but self-deceit", said STP spokesman Andreas Selmeci in Istanbul. During the summit, the Russian regime had not for an instant hesitated to continue its bombing campaign against civilians in Chechnya. The Chechen towns of Achkoi-Martan and Urus-Martan had been destroyed by Russian rockets and bombs, killing dozens of people. STP has learned that the Russian forces are running again their notorious internment camps, known as "filtration camps", for Chechen men over 14 in Mozdok and other locations along the Chechen-Russian border. STP fears that, like in 1994-1996, hundreds of innocent people will be tortured and killed in these "filtration camps". The entire letter of President Maskhadov can be obtained by fax from the Society for Threatened Peoples in Germany both in English and in Russian, please call +49/ 551/ 49906-28.For further information and interviews, please call Dr. Andreas Selmeci in Istanbul, mobile phone +49/ 173/ 271.0770, or Tilman Zuelch, President of STP International, +49/551/499.06.21 or mobile phone +49/171/562.05.23.