Today the PACE (Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly) has opened its session in Strasbourg, one of the key questioned to be discussed is human rights observance in the North Caucasus. We would like to note that chairman of the Interregional Committee Against Torture Igor Kalyapin will take part in the PACE session.

    During the session it is planned to discuss the report of Mr. Dick Marty (PACE, Switzerland). The report was prepared by Mr. Marty after he visited Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan in spring this year. Mr. Marty noted that the situation in the North Caucasus region constituted a very serious problem. In particular, he said that, in the Chechen Republic, the current authorities continued to maintain a generalised climate of fear, successive disappearances of human rights defenders persisted.  

The report elaborates in detail on European Court judgments under the so called “Chechen cases”. We would like to remind you that to date the ECtHR has delivered 150 judgments finding Russia in breach of the Convention.  

It should be mentioned that there are several applications about tortures and abductions in Chechnya filed by the ICAT pending trial by the Strasbourg Court.