Strasbourg, 03/07/2000 (Agence Europe) - A report by experts which the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, commissioned of three legal experts, accuses Russia of having violated the European Convention on Human Rights on several fundamental points. The experts consider the answers regarding the situation in Chechnya provided by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to questions raised by Mr. Schwimmer under Article 52 of the Conventionto be inadequate and that Russia "does not satisfy even the minimum standards that Article 52 involves".
According to Tamas Ban, Human Right Advisor to the President of Hungary's Constitutional Court, "the way in which the Russian interpret their obligations is of real concern, over and above the current problem, ie., the way in which they are dealing with the Chechnya conflict". Mr. Ban is particularly surprised that the 1998 law on the repression of terrorism "authorises anti-terrorist units to disregard a certain number of human rights" relating to the movement of persons, identity controls, arrests and searches. He stresses that "the military, specialists and other participants in the fight against terrorism are exonerated from all responsibility for damage caused during an anti-terrorist operation". French Professor Frederic Sudre, for his part, is concerned at the lack of explanations from Moscow on the civilian victims of armed operations, persons arrested or displaced and crimes committed by the federal forces against the population. He then states: "When it comes to banning torture, the right to freedom and safety, the right to a fair trial and free movement, the Russian Federation clearly ignores the European Convention of Human Rights".