On Tuesday, Dick Marti, the rapporteur for the Human Rights Commission at the PACE, presented a memorandum in Strasbourg, telling about concerns related to human rights violations going on in the North Caucasus.    

According to his information, the law enforcement bodies in this Russian region continue to violate human rights of the local population. People get missing and there are facts of tortures and extrajudicial reprisals. The speaker called the human rights situation in the North Caucasus to be more alarming than in any of 47 other states of the CE. 

Senator Marti had to use a form of memorandum instead of a standard full-size report. Working on report might have taken a series of inspective trips to the north Caucasus by representatives of the CE, and the outcomes of such a report would have been some resolutions and recommendations made to the Russian government.  

For the last time the report about human rights situation in the North Caucasus was discussed by PACE in January 2006, which was accompanied with adoption of a resolution. Then the attention lessened towards the region.  

In relation to Dick Marti’s memorandum the human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch called the CE to resumption of intensive monitoring the situation in the North Caucasus. 

“Much as war is over in Chechnya, the memorandum by the speaker of the CE shows that civil population is still in terrible condition there” stated Holly Cartner, the director of the Human Rights Watch in Europe and Central Asia. “PACE could ease the lives of people in the North Caucasus sending observers there for examining serious cases of human rights violations”.