War brought home to Chechens in Moscow

MOSCOW - Dark-skinned people from the rebellious Russian region of Chechnya are being persecuted and driven out of Moscow under a thinly-veiled official campaign of ethnic cleansing, human rights activists charge.

"Chechens in Moscow today are like Jews in Nazi Germany," says Svetlana Alieva, a political scientist who works with the Confederation of Repressed Peoples, a public organisation whose main purpose is to shed light on Soviet-era crimes against humanity.

"The current atmosphere in Moscow is charged with fear and apprehension, very reminiscent of the Communist past," she says. "Not only Chechens but all dark people from the Caucasus are afraid to go into the streets, because they can be subject to summary arrest and beatings."

All non-residents of Moscow - even if they are Russian citizens - are required to obtain a special stamp in their internal passport every 45 days certifying they have a legitimate reason to be in the city.

Police have the right to stop anyone on the street to inspect their papers. If they lack the propiska, which signifies they are a resident, or a temporary registration stamp, they are subject to immediate arrest.

"The registration system is a holdover from Communist times which is absolutely illegal," says Nikolai Kostenko, a worker with Helsinki Watch, one of the oldest Russian human rights groups.

Russia has been fighting on and off for the better part of this decade to prevent Chechnya from seceding. That conflict is flaring again as Russian forces battle separatist rebels deep inside the tiny Caucasian republic.

But the majority of Chechens actually live outside Chechnya, and many of them protest they are loyal Russian citizens.

"I don't care about politics, I just want to live," says 34-year-old Rosa Akhmadkhanova, who fled the worsening situation in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in early September and took refuge with her sister, a Moscow resident.

But she said police, apparently tipped by a neighbour, came to her sister's flat in the Moscow suburb of Yugo-Zapadna on September 28 and arrested her. She was held for four hours, interrogated, fingerprinted, photographed and told to get out of Moscow within a week.

Human rights experts say the Moscow registration system has always been a source of deep concern. But after mysterious bombings killed hundreds of Russians in September, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov ordered "Operation Whirlwind" - an emergency campaign to crack down on terrorism.

"The purpose of the registration system is to keep track of visitors to the city," says Vladimir Zubkov, the deputy head of the police press service. "More than half of all crime in Moscow is committed by outsiders."

Over 20,000 people, mostly people from the Caucasus, were scooped up on the streets of Moscow in September. Many of them remain in detention. A further 15,000 people were refused re-registration and ordered to leave the city.

Even Chechens who have permanent residence in Moscow say they have been harassed. Baudin Tsakoyev, a 35-year-old factory worker who has lived in Moscow since 1984 says he was arrested when he came to his local police station to try to obtain temporary residence for his 16-year-old nephew, a refugee from the fighting in Chechnya.

Leaders of the dwindling Chechen community in Moscow charge the goal of the current campaign is to force all Chechens to leave.

"There are thousands of Chechens in Moscow, and most of them are loyal citizens who hold respectable jobs," says Abuezid Apaiv, chairman of the Chechen-Ingush Cultural Centre, a community-supported organisation that runs a school, holds concerts and provides Chechen language classes.

He says Chechens are being hounded not only by police, but also by their Russian neighbours. "Russian landlords are kicking their Chechen tenants out of their apartments and seizing their property. Chechens get fired from their jobs with no explanation. They are making it impossible to live."