Strasbourg, 02/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Secretariat General of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer, outlined, during the plenary session of the parliamentary Assembly, the lack of progress in the investigations into the violations of human rights committed in Chechnya. After the intervention of the office of Vladimir Kalamanov, more than 300 people held in temporary detention centres have been freed and more than one third of the roughly 900 requests concerning missing persons have allowed to find those concerned, sadly not always alive, stated Mr Schwimmer before continuing: However, I must bring a sever judgement on the follow-up to be given by the Russian prosecutors to the complaints made against the armed forces of the Federation. They have done nearly nothing (…). The competent Russian authorities must do better than promises (…). This concerns the credibility of our organisation and the sincerity of the Russian undertaking towards our values. He also added: I feel it crucial that the Russian authorities give me the possibility of reporting to this Assembly, during the September session, substantial visible progress, and I insist on the word visible, in the investigations carried out by the public ministry.
EUROPE recalls that three experts from the Council of Europe work within the office of Mr Kalamanov, 16,000 requests have been filed with the office and more than 6,000 recorded.