This temporary flesh and bone

This is crushingly depressing in that special way something that seems totally unstoppable is.

Via Human Rights Watch, the latest threat against human rights advocates in Chechnya:

Akhmed Gisayev, a Memorial employee who had been working with Natalia Estemirova to investigate a sensitive human rights case in the days before her murder on July 15, 2009, has experienced a series of menacing events in the past days and weeks.

In the evening of August 13, a group of three or four armed men stopped Gisayev and his wife near their apartment in Grozny. The men pointed their weapons at Gisayev and demanded his documents. They refused to identify themselves or explain the reasons for the search. When Gisayev said that he worked at Memorial and showed his Memorial ID card, one of the men said: “And it’s your colleagues who are getting killed? And do you know why they’re getting killed?” They then returned Gisayev’s passport and left. The next morning, on August 14, Russian military and local security personnel conducted a passport check-and-search operation on Gisayev’s street. Such operations used to occur regularly, but have not occurred in Gisayev’s region for a long time. Some of the men who had threatened him the previous evening were among those who searched his apartment.

Prior to these events, Gisayev had observed a car parked next to his house on several occasions. The car had dark windows, a radio transmitter, and a license plate with a number not used for civilian vehicles, leading him to suspect that it belonged to the security services. Gisayev reported these incidents to the prosecutor’s office in Chechnya, but the authorities did not undertake any concrete measures to investigate them or to ensure Gisayev’s protection.

[…]

In the days before Estemirova was killed, Gisayev and Estemirova had been researching the case of a man who had been abducted and tortured by local law enforcement officials. When the man’s relatives began to work with Gisayev and Estemirova to take action on his case, the man was taken into incommunicado detention by local law enforcement from the hospital where he had been receiving treatment for his torture injuries. Memorial staff and the man’s relatives appealed to the local prosecutor’s office in the first week of July. Soon after, Gisayev began to notice the suspicious-looking vehicles outside his home.

Gisayev is an applicant in a case pending before the European Court of Human Rights, relating to his own illegal detention and torture by Russian servicemen in 2003.

The human rights movement does not need any more martyrs. If  Akhmed Gisayev was my friend or co-worker, I would be doing my utmost to convince him to leave Chechnya, to leave Russia and seek asylum somewhere in Western Europe.

And yet, if every human rights advocate in a dangerous place took that advice, there would be no one to track down disappeared prisoners, uncover unmarked graves, and amplify voices of living victims. In the North Caucasus, this is lonely and, for many, eventually lethal work. Allies and colleagues in Brussels, Washington, London, New York and even Moscow can do little more than wait in dread by their phones and keep their computer screens open to email.

The condemnation of an activist’s murder in the Russian Federation now has its own form letter; all one needs to add is the who, where, and how. Everyone knows the why.

What more can one even say?

Stay safe? Good luck? Solidarity?

Oh, this is bad

According to Human Rights Watch, a Chechen aidworker and her husband were brazenly abducted from the office of the Grozny-based humanitarian NGO Save the Generation today (yesterday Russian time).

Two armed men entered the office of the group, Save the Generation, at about 2 p.m., witnesses said. The men said they were members of the security services and demanded that Zarema Sadulayeva, the head of the organization, and her husband, Alik (Umar) Lechayevich Dzhabrailov, come with them. They did not say where they were taking the couple. They had not been heard from as of 9:30 p.m., and Russian authorities had not responded to inquiries about the couple’s whereabouts by the Russian human rights organization Memorial.

Clearly not afraid of being identified or pursued, the kidnappers later came back to take their victims’ things.

Shortly after Sadulayeva and Dzhabrailov were taken away, the men who had taken them returned to the organization’s office and took Dzhabrailov’s mobile phone and his car, a gray VAZ 2110, with a license plate ending in 237.

Not even a month has passed since the murder of one of Chechnya’s –and Russia’s– most prominent human rights advocates, Natalia Estemirova. But unlike Estemirova, who directly investigated crimes by state agents, Sadulayeva and her husband were involved in apolitical humanitarian work.

Save the Generation is a nongovernmental organization in Chechnya founded in 2001 that provides psychological and physical rehabilitation to disabled children, orphans, and other socially vulnerable groups. The group also works closely with UNICEF, among other groups, to provide training about landmines, and promotes protection of the rights of the disabled.

Honestly, it doesn’t get any more uncontroversial than orphans, children with disabilities, and landmine victims. However, this is Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov,  and Kadyrov really doesn’t like it when people point out the fact that his republic has, you know, some issues.

In a recent Radio Free Europe interview, he actually made the following statement:

The only thing I can say is that we’ll fully rebuild Chechnya and solve every social problem. Chechnya will be the most successful region in Russia and the world.

Ok then! Right. Those ain’t delusions of grandeur at all.

On the subject of human rights abuses, Kadyrov wanted to make one thing crystal clear: he’s the biggest victim of all.

[…] my father was killed. I’ve lost thousands of people I know [Who actually knows, I mean personally knows, thousands of people? -Ed]. I’ve lost relatives, classmates and friends. And no one says Kadyrov has lost them, that Kadyrov has rights, too. Everyone’s silent about that.

As my stepfather says, “What’s that I hear? The sound of the world’s smallest, saddest violin playing just for you?”

When terrorists set off bombs in the center of Grozny, killing police, women, and children, human rights activists say nothing about that. Why don’t they protect my rights? Kadyrov has lost everything. But whenever something happens in Chechnya — where there are a million residents — if someone violates the law, it’s always Kadyrov who’s to blame.

All of which would seem totally unfair but for the pesky little fact that virtually everyone Kadyrov threatens meets a strange and grisly end soon thereafter. (But don’t worry, Kadyrov has a totally reasonable explanation for this. Watch the video!)

Meanwhile, back in the real world:

“Human Rights Watch is extremely concerned about the fate of Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov,” said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The shocking murder of Natalia Estemirova only last month has made it obvious that activists in Chechnya are being targeted for their work and are extremely vulnerable.”

“If the authorities have officially detained Sadulayeva and Dzhabrailov, they should reveal their location and the legal basis for holding them and guarantee their rights,” Cartner said. “This includes an absolute prohibition on ill-treatment, their right to inform their relatives of their whereabouts, and access to a lawyer of their choosing.”

As if screaming into the wind –which is what all appeals to the rule of law in the North Caucasus have become– HRW finishes with the following:

The detention of anyone followed by a refusal to acknowledge this detention, or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the detained person, constitutes an enforced disappearance, a crime under international law that is prohibited in all circumstances.

These stories don’t usually end happily, but I’m going to hold out hope Sadulayeva and Dzhabrailov are still alive until I read otherwise.

Ramzan Kadyrov gives a fantastically creepy interview

I’m glad the RFE_RL journalist who conducted this interview didn’t end up missing, or tiger food.

Here’s what Kadyrov said about the murder of Natalia Estemirova [emphasis mine]:

RFE/RL: You’ve promised to oversee an objective investigation into the murder of Natalya Estemirova. But her colleagues blame you for her killing. Why not appoint, or welcome, an independent figure to ensure that objectivity?

Kadyrov: Why invite people from outside to do that if we have our own laws here? Are investigations in the Russian Federation conducted worse than in other countries? A full investigation is being carried out.

[Memorial head] Oleg Orlov blamed me [for Estemirova’s death]. That human rights defender violated my human rights. He should have protected me as an individual and thought about what he was going to say. But he accused me of being a murderer. He said that Kadyrov killed Estemirova. I told him, “Mr. Orlov, you’re an adult. Be a real person for once in your life and tell me why you violated my rights?” He replied saying, “That’s not what I meant. I meant you in your role as president.”

They [human rights activists] are all lawyers. The texts they write follow the letter of the law. [Orlov] told me he blamed me as president, as the guarantor of the constitution. They’re very good lawyers. But if they say that Kadyrov or his people are to blame, let them prove it. Why would Kadyrov kill women that no one needs?

[Estemirova] never had any honor or sense of shame. And still I appointed her head of a [civil society advisory] commission with the mayor of Grozny as her deputy. I wanted to be objective about addressing the issue. But she didn’t like it. She would say stupid things. I told her, “You’re a woman, and we’re trying to do something for the people. But if it doesn’t work, don’t blame us.” I said I would show her the city budget and told her to try to do better. She said, “Yes, I understand.”

So I said I’d disband the commission, thanks very much for your work, but I don’t trust you. I didn’t treat her gently. I didn’t tell her I loved her. I told it like it was. We were both acting in our professional capacities. She was the head of the commission, and I, as the president of Chechnya, was evaluating her work. So why am I to blame? Let the investigators conduct their work. If Kadyrov or his people are to blame, let them be tried and jailed.

So. Incredibly. Creepy.

Also, don’t you just love it when thuggish leaders shift back and forth between first and third person?

Odds and ends

The Afghan parliament is revising the country’s marriage law, and not in woman-friendly ways, according to AlterNet:

The Afghan parliament is expected to soon approve revisions to its marriage law that will do very little in the way of improving women’s rights. Despite recent demands that the country radically rework its policies on issues such as polygamy and a woman’s right to work, Afghanistan’s government is signaling a continued adherence to regressive traditions.

In a recent letter to Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, activists said, “slight changes in the wordings of the law, rather than changes in content,” have rendered the revisions ineffectual.

Additionally, Shinkai Kharokhel, a lawmaker involved in the legislation, told the Associated Press on July 14 that the law’s revisions do little more than uphold structural inequalities in the country. She said many Afghan women “are illiterate, and they don’t have financial security and no one will give her money … shelter, medical, food, all these expenses belong to the man, and he can hold that back.”

What is perhaps most unfortunate among the “revisions” is the Afghan government’s failure to erase a law that calls on women to engage in sex with their husbands at least every four days. Although the proposed revisions do eliminate a time frame for sexual requirements, they still allow a man to withhold financial support for his wife if she refuses to “submit to her husband’s reasonable sexual enjoyment,” Human Rights Watch has reported.

“[…] submit to her husband’s reasonable sexual enjoyment”?

That’s grim stuff. Here’s hoping MP Kharokhel and other progressive MPs make more of a dent in this law.

***

While we’re on the topic of misogyny and sexism, my landlord busted out the following gem two nights ago when I complained about sexual harassment of women on the streets of my city.

“You know the Bloodhound Gang song ‘Street Legal Whore’? Well, that describes most women your age. Take it [the harassment] as a compliment. Pretty soon you’ll be too old for it.”

Needless to say, I’m moving out at the end of the summer. I’d move out sooner, but can’t afford to.

(Oh, and that foul Bloodhound Gang song is actually titled “I’m the Least You Could Do.”)

***

I have nothing but contempt for Jeff Sessions.

Via Human Rights Now:

Yesterday the Senate passed four amendments to the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, including a provision that would allow the death penalty to apply to hate crimes.  This amendment, added by Senator Jeff Sessions, R, AL (a vocal opponent of the Act itself), adds nothing to the justice the bill seeks for victims of gender and sexuality-based hate crimes.

The point Sessions was trying to convey is something like “If you’re going to pass legislation that discourages people from committing crimes against members of groups I resent the very existence of, I’m going to bundle that legislation with a big, fat human rights violation! How’d ya like that?”

My mind, it boggles.

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It's almost time for the Sarajevo Film Festival (pictured: posters from the 2007 SFF)

***

My ex-boyfriend and I are going to see Afghan Star this weekend. I’m excited. Here’s the trailer.

Dasht-e Leili

This video from Physicians for Human Rights gives the story of the massacre, the coverup, and the complicity of the Bush Administration in both.

What international justice looks like

Former paramilitaries Milan and Sredoje Lukic were sentenced to life and 30 years imprisonment, respectively, by the ICTY.

The cousins were found guilty of burning alive 130 civilians –most of them women, children and elderly men– near the Bosnian town in Visegrad in 1992, murdering an additional 12 civilian men, and beating prisoners in a detention camp.

According to the BBC:

Judge Patrick Robinson, reading his verdict, said: “The perpetration by Milan Lukic and Stredoje Lukic of crimes in this case is characterised by a callous and vicious disregard for human life.”

The burning alive of Muslims, he said, was extraordinarily brutal, and “exemplified the worst acts of humanity that one person may inflict on others”.

You can watch a video of the verdict here.

Kadyrov is going to sue Memorial for accusing him of killing Natalia Estemirova

Well, this is rich.

MOSCOW — The spokesman for Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s strongman leader, says his boss will sue a top human rights organization for claiming he was behind the brazen slaying of one of its activists.

Natalya Estemirova, an activist for the group Memorial, had exposed dozens of rights abuses in the Russian region of Chechnya. Her bullet-ridden body was found Wednesday, hours after she was kidnapped by four men not far from her home in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

Oleg Orlov, Memorial’s chief, said Thursday: “I know who is guilty of Natalya’s murder. His name is Ramzan Kadyrov.” Orlov said he meant Kadyrov carried broader responsibility rather than ordering her murder.

Kadyrov’s spokesman Alvi Karimov said Kadyrov’s lawyer is preparing a lawsuit “to defend his dignity.”

Where could Memorial employees have gotten the idea that Kadyrov had anything to do with Estemirova’s death?

Oh, right — Kadyrov himself.

[…] the Chechen president offered Estemirova a position as the head of a civil society advisory commission for the city of Grozny. She accepted. It was not in Estimirova’s character to shut up, though. Even while advising the government of Kadyrov, she did not stop writing reports for Memorial. The one about Kadyrov forbidding girls to come to universities without head scarves made him really angry. In March 2008, Kadyrov called her to come to a city office and yelled at her. Estemirova was fired. He threatened her multiple times, she later told us, but her Memorial friends “decided to keep that out of publicity, as Memorial’s work in Chechnya would stop the moment we decided otherwise.”

According to Estemirova’s boss, “He [Kadyrov] personally threatened Natalia, told her that her hands would be covered in blood and that he destroys bad people.”

Of course, it’s entirely possible that Kadyrov didn’t order Estemirova’s murder. As Natalia Antonova pointed out:

Estemirova worked in the Caucus, arguably one of the most macho regions of macho Russia. She investigated human rights abuse in Chechnya. Although internationally, consensus has already been reached and “pro-government” figures are thought as the likely culprits, the truth is, this woman could have crossed just about anyone. In a region with a history of war and ongoing violence, plenty of people may have wanted Natalia Estemirova dead.

That said, Kadyrov and his associates don’t make a great case for their innocence with their history of publicly threatening and vilifying Estemirova. The funny thing about people Kadyrov threatens is, they usually end up dead.

Personally, I miss the days when drunks could be put in the stocks and had rotten fruit hurled at them

Two HuffPost commenters on the captured Somali pirate:

Commenter 1: I long for the days when pirates were hung on the spot. Instead we are taking this guy in and giving him the best healthcare, food, educational opportunities, and living conditions hes ever had.

Commenter 2: So you long for the days before electricity, air travel, sanitation, antibiotics, etc, etc?

Modernity sucked all the fun out of life, huh?

In another case of “the rule of law: ur doin it wrong”…

Mischa writes to me:

It’s not illegal when the President’s advisors say it isn’t.

And then after, it’s retroactively still not illegal.

That said, leftists feeling betrayed should ask themselves when he ever promised anything on this.

Think positive.  Think positive.

The worst part just hit me.

“It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department.”

I can see how they want to avoid it being Abu Ghraib  — lock up some peons for the cameras, etc.  But when you think about that statement for a moment.  The Holderobama DoJ has just approved the Nuremberg Defense.

My boss said it was OK.  That is, in effect, the Nuremberg Defense.  Only this time, it wasn’t done by people following the orders of a totalitarian regime, so it’s less morally excusable.

oh well, Befehl ist Befehl.

The latest on the Shia Family Law fiasco

On April 5th, the Washington Post reported that Karzai ordered the law reviewed by the Ministry of Justice:

I ordered the justice minister to review the law, and if there is anything that would contravene the country’s constitution or Shariah law or the freedom our constitution gives to Afghan women, without any doubt there will be changes in it, and again it will be sent to the parliament of Afghanistan.

According to the Post article, Karzai also claims that the press has mistranslated the law.

***

In any case, Afghan civil society activists and liberal members of the National Assembly have already begun campaigning for a comprehensive and rights-affirming review. On the Canadian radio news program “As It Happens,” MP Sabrina Saqib said that the law has sparked an intense national discussion on women’s rights and has already been the subject of numerous radio and television debates.

***

Registan‘s Joshua Faust makes some good points, but his commenters are better.

Commenter “Monk” says:

It is a shame that religious and racist extremists like [mohammad Asif] Mohsini have become power brokers while the Hazaras, despite their never ending persecution by Islamic and ethnocentrist extremists; are being increasingly marginalized. Let’s not even start discussing how the dedication of all aid and reconstruction funds to Taliban hit south and warlord hit north have let down the Hazaras right from the start of “democracy in Afghanistan”.

This law is yet another attempt to undermine the progress Hazaras have made during the last eight years. The facts speak for themselves. Hazara women still refuse to wear full hijab, they have had active participation in programs like Afghan Star. They hold posts such as Afghanistan’s only female governor, only female mayor, head of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission and more in NGO’s and offices across the country. Hazarajat has the most promising female to male ratio in school and university enrollment.

These are facts, unmatched in any of the areas Mohsini or Karzai could ever actually represent. The rest is pure bullshit.

Meanwhile, not just the Western press continues to churn out ever more ridiculous and shallow stories on tHoSe cRaZy ShIa! 

Take, for example, this article from Al Jazeera, which is so absurdly one-sided it merits a mention just as an example of awful journalism on Afghanistan. The reporter apparently thinks he can gauge the opinion of the entire Shia community by going to ONE MOSQUE in Kabul during a speech by Mohseni in support of the law. The best (read: worst) part comes in the related video, wherein Mohseni unfurls a “scroll” with…stuff on it. We’re told it’s covered in the signatures and thumbprints of “hundreds” of Shia women who support the law. No opponents of the law are interviewed and the video ends on a shoulder-shrugging “guess that’s just their culture!” note.

FAIL.

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In a  better Washington Post article, Pamela Constable writes:

In the flurry of debate, some Afghan men have expressed concern that women might be tempted to have affairs if they are allowed out in public or have expressed outrage at what they see as foreign interference in their religious beliefs. But some women, especially those from an emerging, better-educated generation, have seized the opportunity to express their views on the need for more women’s rights within Islam.

One is Habiba Saddiqi, 23, an engineering student who has collaborated closely with UNIFEM, the U.N. women’s organization that has a large program in Kabul and was among the first groups to raise alarms about the Shiite law. Saddiqi, who is Shiite, said she and her friends had collected thousands of signatures in the past week, calling for a more moderate version of the law.

Huh. Thousands of signatures, you say? Would have been nice of Al Jazeera to interview Saddiqi.

“We need such a law, but it should be a democratic one,” she said. “This law is made by men for their benefit. If a father can order a daughter to marry whomever he likes, it means she has no rights. That is not good for women, and it is not good for society.”