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#29 - JRL 2007-194 - JRL Home
No Barriers Hampering Work Of NGOs In Chechnya - Human Rights Commissioner

GROZNY. Sept 11 (Interfax) - The conditions necessary to ensure international humanitarian aid organizations' and non-governmental organizations' effective work in Chechnya have been created, Chechen Human Rights Commissioner Nurdi Nukhazhiyev said.

"The situation is much safer for humanitarian aid organizations in Chechnya than in neighboring regions. Naturally enough, the Chechen president has urged humanitarian aid organizations to move their offices to Chechnya, the more so since their work centers on this region," Nukhazhiyev told Interfax on Tuesday.

"Assertions that the Chechen authorities are trying to interfere in their are ungrounded, absurd, and aim to discredit the authorities' economic and social rehabilitation and stabilization measures," he said.

Nukhazhiyev also denied reports claiming that a group of Chechen human rights activists, on their way back to the republic from an international conference, were detained at Moscow's Vnukovo airport.

"Some media outlets are deliberately misusing terms. It was a regular check, common at any international airport. In this case it's a banal playing with terms for the lay reader," he said.

Nukhazhiyev said he was against "discussions of the problem of Chechen civil society in faraway countries.

"I want to make it clear to the broad public that there is no problem in the development of civil society in Chechnya., only in its restoration. No barriers to this exist in Chechnya, no barriers hamper discussions of these problems. They should be discussed in Chechnya, not in Belgium or Switzerland," he said.