HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN CHECHNYA

Motion Text

That this House notes with concern that the UN's Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, was apparently denied permission by the Russians to visit several villages and a detention centre to investigate allegations of serious human rights abuses by Russian soldiers; is alarmed that, according to Amnesty International, the abuses against Chechen civilians have not stopped and that arbitrary arrest, torture, ill-treatment and deaths in detention are still occurring; is deeply disturbed at reports that detainees in secret filtration camps are routinely and systematically tortured, then are raped, beaten with hammers and clubs, tortured with electric shocks and tear gas, have teeth sawn off and are beaten around the ears to burst their ear-drums; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to insist that the Russian authorities address international demands to investigate allegations of human rights abuses in Chechnya forthwith.