Russia

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Procuracy, and the Federal Tax Police are responsible for law enforcement at all levels of Government. The FSB has broad law enforcement functions, including fighting crime and corruption, in addition to its core responsibilities of security, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism. The FSB operates with only limited oversight by the Procuracy and the courts. The primary mission of the armed forces is national defense, although they have been employed in local internal conflicts, and they are available to control civil disturbances. Internal security threats in parts of the Russian Federation increasingly have been dealt with by militarized elements of the security services. Members of the security forces, particularly within the internal affairs apparatus, continued to commit numerous, serious human rights abuses.

The country has a total population of approximately 144 million. The economy continued to grow strongly, although at a slower rate than in 2000. The gross domestic product (GDP) figure for 2000 was recalculated to show an 8.3 percent growth rate, and growth during the year was estimated to be 5 percent. Industrial production growth was estimated to be 4.9 percent. GDP was $224.3 billion for the first 11 months of the year. During the same period, total foreign investment grew by 23 percent and equaled $9.7 billion (283 billion rubles). A significant part of this investment was portfolio investment (principally oil company stocks). In 2000 inflation reached 20.2 percent and was estimated at 18.6 percent at year's end. An increase in domestic demand continued to spur economic growth, partially compensating for a decline in net exports during the first half of the year. Real income grew during the year by 6.5 percent, compared with 2000. Average wages increased to $143 (4,294 Rubles) per month compared with $89 (2,492 Rubles) per month in 2000; however, approximately 27 percent of citizens continued to live below the official monthly subsistence level of $52 (1,574 rubles). Official unemployment was 9 percent at year's end, down from 10.2 percent at the end of 2000. Reported levels of barter transactions--which make up an important but declining element in the economy--continued to fall during the year. The sectors moving most quickly to cash-only transactions included chemicals, petrochemicals, machinery, and light industry. Corruption continued to be a negative factor in the development of the economy and commercial relations.

Although the Government generally respected the human rights of its citizens in some areas, serious problems remain in many areas. Its record was poor regarding the independence and freedom of the media. Its record was poor in Chechnya, where the federal security forces demonstrated little respect for basic human rights and there were credible reports of serious violations, including numerous reports of extrajudicial killings by both the Government and Chechen fighters. Hazing in the armed forces resulted in a number of deaths. There were reports of government involvement in politically motivated disappearances in Chechnya. There were credible reports that law enforcement personnel regularly tortured, beat, and otherwise abused detainees and suspects. Arbitrary arrest and detention and police corruption remained problems. The Government prosecuted some perpetrators of abuses, but many officials were not held accountable for their actions. Lengthy pretrial detention remained a serious problem. Prison conditions continued to be extremely harsh and frequently life threatening. Existing laws on military courts, military service, and the rights of service members often contradict the Constitution, federal laws, and presidential decrees, raising arbitrary judgments of unit commanders over the rule of law. The Government made some progress during the year with implementation of constitutional provisions for due process and fair and timely trial; however, the judiciary continued to lack resources, suffered from corruption, and remained subject to some influence from other branches of the Government. A series of so-called espionage cases continued during the year and raised concerns regarding the lack of due process and the influence of security services in court cases. Authorities continued to infringe on citizens' privacy rights.

Despite the continued wide diversity of press, government pressure on the media increased and resulted in numerous restrictions on the freedom of speech and press. The Government generally respected freedom of assembly; however, at times this right was restricted at the local level. The Government does not always respect the Constitutional provision for equality of religions, and in some instances local authorities imposed restrictions on some religious groups. Despite constitutional protections for citizens' freedom of movement, the Government placed some limits on this right; some regional and local authorities (most notably the city of Moscow) restricted movement in particular by denying local residency permits to new settlers from other areas of the country. Government institutions intended to protect human rights are relatively weak, but remained active and public.

Violence against women and abuse of children remained problems, as did discrimination against women. Persons with disabilities continued to face problems from both societal attitudes and lack of governmental support. Societal discrimination, harassment, and violence against members of some religious minorities remained a problem. Ethnic minorities, including Roma and persons from the Caucasus and Central Asia faced widespread governmental and societal discrimination, and at times violence. There are some limits on worker rights, and there were reports of instances of forced labor and child labor. Trafficking in persons, particularly women and young girls, was a serious problem.

Chechen fighters reportedly committed abuses, including killing captured civilians and federal security forces, and kidnaping individuals, particularly to obtain a ransom. Government officials accused rebel factions of organizing and carrying out a series of bomb attacks throughout the country beginning in September 1999 and continuing into the year; hundreds of civilians were killed or injured. During the year, the Government convicted several persons in connection with these bombings.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life

There were no confirmed reports of political killings by the Government or its agents; however, during the fighting in Chechnya, there were credible reports that the armed forces used indiscriminate force at various times in areas with significant civilian populations, resulting in numerous deaths (see Section 1.g.). There also were credible reports that the federal armed forces engaged in extrajudicial killings in Chechnya.

An estimated 10,000 to 11,000 detainees and prisoners died during the year (see Section 1.c.). Most died as a result of overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, or lack of medical care (the leading cause of death was heart disease), although some died due to beatings.

Hazing in the armed forces resulted in the deaths of servicemen (see Section 1.c.).

During the year, the Moscow okrug military court resumed a trial against five former military intelligence officers accused of organizing the 1994 killing of journalist Dmitriy Kholodov. A sixth defendant, the head of a bodyguard agency, was charged with complicity (see Section 2.a.). A suitcase bomb killed Kholodov in 1994; at the time of his killing, he was investigating widespread corruption among the military leadership.

Government forces and Chechen fighters have used landmines extensively in Chechnya and Dagestan since August 1999 (see Section 1.g.); there have been a significant number of civilian landmine casualties in Chechnya and Dagestan. In 2000 66 persons were killed and 166 injured in incidents involving landmines. Rebels frequently used radio-detonated mines against vehicles carrying military personnel.

The press and media nongovernmental organizations (NGO's) reported a number of killings of journalists killed presumably because of their work (see Section 2.a.).

A number of government officials were murdered throughout the country; some of these killings appear to have been politically motivated, either connected with the ongoing strife in Chechnya, or with local politics. For example, on October 30, an unknown person fatally shot the Vice Speaker of the Dagestani Parliament Arsen Kammayev and a prominent local banker near the Vice Speaker's home. According to NTV, in November, the head of the local Novolaksk Agricultural Administration, Saygid-Batal Uzunayev, admitted to hiring the killer, claiming that he did so to preempt his own contract killing by Kammayev's agent.

On November 2, unknown persons fatally shot Sergey Balashov, Deputy Prefect of Moscow's Western Okrug, in charge of housing affairs, in front of the prefecture building. In December the local procurator stated that he believed the killing was a contract killing most likely related to the victim's professional activity; at year's end, an investigation into the killings continued. Other similar killings include the February 14 killing of Lema Temirgeryiev, the local administrator of the village of Agish-Bito in Chechnya; the July 24 killing of First Deputy Prefect of Moscow's Zelenogradskiy Okrug Leonid Oblonskiy; and the August 7 killing of the Deputy Mayor of Novosibirsk Igor Belyakov.

There have been no developments in the December 5, 2000, killing of the Mayor of Murom, Petr Kaurov. There also were no developments in the 2000 killing of Svetlana Semenova, regional coordinator for the political party Union of Right Forces (SPS); it was not clear whether these killings were politically motivated. During the year, the police released Semenova's husband, who was the main suspect in the case.

According to Human Rights Watch, no one has been held accountable for the extrajudicial killings of 130 civilians in Alkyan-Yurt, Staropromyslovskiy, and Novye Aldi in 1999 and 2000. In February a mass grave containing approximately 50 bodies, including the bodies of several women, was discovered near the federal military base in Khankala. Some of the bodies showed that the victims had been shot in the back of the head and had their hands bound. Two of the corpses had ears cut off. Relatives identified several bodies as belonging to family members who had been detained by units of the federal forces the previous year, at times when there was no military activity in the area. Military sources and the Chechen procurator's office stated that the gravesite was more than a year old (predating the establishment of the federal military base), and that the bodies belonged to Chechen rebels who had been fighting among themselves; however, local forensic experts determined that the corpses were less than a year old.

There were no developments in the 1999 killing of St. Petersburg Deputy Mayor Mikhail Manevich. In the case of the St. Petersburg Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) leader Gennadiy Tuganov, killed in 1999, police completed their investigation but failed to identify who hired the killer. In the case of St. Petersburg legislative assembly Deputy Viktor Novoselov, killed in October 1999, police arrested four persons--three of whom were described as professional killers--but had no information on who hired the killers. At year's end, a trial date had been set for January 2002 in the St. Petersburg city court.

In May the FSB stated that it was extending by another 6 months its investigation of the 1998 killing of Galina Starovoytova, a prominent Duma deputy; however, family members and some activists expressed skepticism at that the Government was investigating the killing fully.

Attacks on ethnic or racial minorities and asylum seekers resulted in some deaths (see Section 5).

There were credible press reports that Chechen fighters tortured and killed a number of civilians and federal soldiers. In the summer, Chechen rebels increased their killings of village officials and militia associated with the Russian-appointed Chechen administration. For example, on September 10, separatists shot and killed the Mayor of Oktyabrskoye village Bukara Akhmatov. Chechen fighters summarily executed federal soldiers whom they took prisoner (see Section 1.g.). Religious and secular figures also were kidnaped and killed in Chechnya during the year (see Sections 1.b., 1.c., and 5).

Government officials accused Chechens of organizing and carrying out a series of bomb attacks throughout the country beginning in September 1999. Since that time, authorities have attributed bombing incidents in Dagestan and several cities in southern areas of the country to Chechen rebels. For example, on March 24, there were explosions in Stavropol and Karachayevo-Cherkessiya in which 21 persons were killed and 150 others were injured. During the year, authorities tried and convicted a number of persons for bombings and other acts of separatist violence around the country. For example, on December 11, the Stavropol Territorial Court sentenced five persons from the northern Caucasus to prison terms averaging from 9 to 15 years for their involvement in two September 1999 Moscow apartment bombings. In December a court in Makhachkala, in Dagestan, sentenced Chechen rebel Salman Raduyev to life in prison for crimes of murder, terrorism, and hostage-taking committed during the first Chechen conflict.

b. Disappearance

There were reports of government involvement in politically motivated disappearances in Chechnya; however, there were fewer reports of kidnapings then in previous years. The NGO Memorial claimed that federal military forces have detained a total of 15,000 persons from Chechnya. Many of these persons disappeared, but most were released, often after their relatives paid a bribe. Memorial estimated that the number of individuals unaccounted for was somewhere between several hundred and a thousand. In March Human Rights Watch released a report titled "The Dirty War in Chechnya: Forced Disappearance, Torture and Summary Executions," which detailed the cases of at least 52 individuals who were in the custody or government authorities when they disappeared. Human Rights Watch believes that the total number of persons who disappeared is much higher. The mutilated bodies of some of those who disappeared later were found in unmarked graves in Chechnya, and showed signs of torture. According to one NGO, Belyy Platok, some federal forces also kidnaped children in Chechnya for ransom (see Section 5).

There were no developments in the ongoing criminal investigation into the disappearance of former speaker of the Chechen parliament and former field commander Ruslan Alikhadzhiyev. In May 2000, Alikhadzhiyev allegedly was detained in Shali by federal forces. In September 2000, the news agency Agence France Presse, citing sources close to the Chechen leadership, reported that Alikhadzhiyev had died of a heart attack in the Lefortovo pretrial detention facility in Moscow. Those sources claimed that federal authorities officially had notified the detainee's relatives of his death; however, soon afterward the news daily Izvestiya reported that Alikhadzhiyev never had been brought to Lefortovo. In October the news daily Moskovskiye novosti reported that there had been no developments in the case, despite a criminal investigation opened by the Shali regional procurator in 2000.

A September report from the office of Vladimir Kalamanov, the President's Special Representative for Human Rights in Chechnya, stated that, since it began operations in February 2000, the office had received complaints of 959 disappearances. According to the office, 401 persons were located, 18 of whom were dead. Criminal investigations were being carried out in 234 of the cases, and searches for missing persons in 324 cases.

In January a rebel band seized a foreign humanitarian assistance worker in Chechnya and held him for a few weeks before releasing him unharmed.

In August former Chechen Interior Minister Said-Selim Baytsev told the weekly magazine Vlast that federal armed forces general Gennadiy Shpigun, whom Chechen rebels had kidnaped in 1999, died in a forest in Chechnya in March 2000 after being beaten by his kidnapers.

Criminal groups in the Northern Caucasus, some of which may have links to elements of the rebel forces, frequently resorted to kidnaping. The main motivation behind such cases apparently is ransom, although some cases have political or religious overtones. Many of the hostages were being held in Chechnya or Dagestan.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits torture, violence, and other brutal or humiliating treatment or punishment; however, there were credible reports that some law enforcement personnel used torture regularly to coerce confessions from suspects, and that the Government does not hold most officials accountable for such actions.

Prisoners' rights groups, as well as other human rights groups, documented numerous cases in which law enforcement and correctional officials tortured and beat detainees and suspects. Human rights groups describe the practice of torture as widespread. In 2000 human rights Ombudsman Oleg Mironov estimated that 50 percent of prisoners with whom he spoke claimed to have been tortured. Numerous press reports indicated that the police frequently strike persons with little or no provocation or use excessive force to subdue arrestees. Reports by refugees, NGO's, and the press suggested a pattern of beatings, arrests, and extortion by police against persons with dark skin, or who appeared to be from the Caucasus, Central Asia, or Africa (see Section 5). Press reports and human rights groups indicated that police in some parts of the country also used beatings and torture as part of investigative procedures as well. Police also continued to harass defense lawyers, including through beatings and arrests, and intimidated witnesses (see Section 1.e.).

Torture by police officers usually occurs within the first few hours or days of arrest and usually takes one of four forms: beatings with fists, batons, or other objects; asphyxiation using gas masks or bags (sometimes filled with mace); electric shocks; or suspension of body parts (e.g. suspending a victim from the wrists, which are tied together behind the back). Allegations of torture are difficult to substantiate because of lack of access by medical professionals and because the techniques used often leave few or no permanent physical traces.

There were credible reports that government forces and Chechen fighters in Chechnya tortured detainees (see Section 1.g.).

Government agencies such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs have begun to educate officers about safeguarding human rights during law enforcement activities through training provided by foreign governments; however, security forces remained largely unreformed. Torture is not defined in the law or the Criminal Code--it only is mentioned in the Constitution; as a result, it is difficult to charge perpetrators. Police only may be accused of exceeding granted authority.

Under the "Operation Clean Hands" program, MVD officials continued to combat police crime. A Ministry of Justice official estimated that during the first 9 months of the year, the number of cases initiated against police personnel was similar to the number registered during the same period in 2000. For example, on September 18, the Primorye regional court convicted seven Vladivostok police officers of abuse of office and one chief of the city police department's criminal investigation division of coercing false testimony. Each officer received a suspended sentence of 31/2 to 5 years, and the court ordered the defendants to pay each of the plaintiffs $3,395 (100,000 rubles) in moral damages. The plaintiffs were two Far Eastern Marine Academy cadets who testified that in 1998 police detained them at random and beat them severely over the course of 4 days to extract a confession for a crime they had not committed.

Various abuses against military servicemen, including but not limited to the practice of "dedovshchina" (the violent, sometimes fatal hazing of new junior recruits for the armed services, MVD, and border guards), continued during the year. Press reports citing serving and former armed forces personnel, the Military Procurator's Office, and NGO's monitoring conditions in the armed forces indicated that this mistreatment often includes the extortion of money or material goods in the face of the threat of increased hazing or actual beatings. Press reports also indicated that this type of mistreatment resulted in permanent injuries and deaths among servicemen. Soldiers often do not report hazing to either unit officers or military procurators due to fear of reprisals, since officers in some cases reportedly tolerate or even encourage such hazing as a means of controlling their units. There also were reports that officers used beatings to discipline soldiers whom they find to be "inattentive to their duties." The practice of hazing reportedly was a serious problem in Chechnya, particularly where contract soldiers and conscripts served together.

Both the Union of Soldiers' Mothers Committee (USMC) and the Main Military Procurator's Office (MPPO) received numerous reports about "nonstatutory relations" in which officers or sergeants physically assaulted or humiliated their subordinates. This tendency commonly is attributed to stressful conditions throughout the armed forces--for example, degrading and substandard living conditions persist throughout the armed forces--and to the widespread placement of inexperienced reserve officers, on active duty for 2 years, in primary troop leadership positions.

Despite the acknowledged seriousness of the problem, the leadership of the armed forces has made only superficial efforts to implement substantive reforms in training, education, and administration programs within units to combat abuse. Their limited efforts were due at least in part to lack of funding and to the leadership's preoccupation with urgent reorganization problems and the fighting in Chechnya. The MMPO continued to cooperate with the USMC to investigate allegations of abuse and in 2000 established telephone and postal "hot lines" to receive reports directly from soldiers. Nonetheless, the USMC believes that most hazing incidents and assaults are not reported, due to a fear of reprisals, the indifference of commanders, and deliberate efforts to cover up such activity.

There were reports that the corruption of government officials facilitated trafficking in persons (see Section 6.f.).

During the year, members of ethnic or racial minorities were victims of beatings, extortion, and harassment by "skinheads" and members of other racist and extremist groups.

Prison conditions remained extremely harsh and frequently life threatening. The Ministry of Justice administers the penitentiary system centrally from Moscow. The Ministries of Justice, Health, Defense, and Education all maintain penal facilities. There are five basic forms of custody in the criminal justice system: Police detention centers, pretrial detention facilities (SIZO's), correctional labor colonies (ITK's), prisons designated for those who violate ITK rules, and educational labor colonies (VTK's) for juveniles. Responsibility for operating the country's penal facilities falls under the Ministry of Justice's Main Directorate for Execution of Sentences (GUIN).

The Government does not release statistics on the number of detainees and prisoners who were killed or died or on the number of law enforcement and prison personnel disciplined. The PCPR estimates that 10,000 to 11,000 prisoners die annually in penitentiary facilities, 2,500 of them in SIZO's. Most died as a result of overcrowding, poor sanitary conditions, or lack of medical care (the leading cause of death was heart disease), but some died due to beatings. The press often reports on individuals mistreated, injured, or killed in various SIZO's; some of the reported cases indicate habitual abuse by the same officers.

Violence among inmates, including beatings and rape, was common. There are elaborate inmate-enforced caste systems in which informers, homosexuals, rapists, prison rape victims, child molesters, and others are considered to be "untouchable" and are treated very harshly, with little or no protection provided by the prison authorities.

The country's penal institutions remained extremely overcrowded. The GUIN stated that the system of SIZO's was at 151.2 percent of capacity at year's end. Many of the facilities were in urgent need of renovation and upgrading. According to the PCPR, between January and September 2000, the prison population fell from approximately 728,000 persons to approximately 675,000 persons, mainly due to amnesties; however, the population has risen since that time. According to GUIN statistics as of September 1, there were 991,156 persons in penitentiary institutions, 671,401; were in correctional colonies (including 39,470 women); 18,910 were in educational colonies (including approximately 1,000 girls); and 244,773 were in SIZO's or prisons. By law inmates must be provided with adequate space, food, and medical attention; however, the authorities were not able to ensure compliance with the law, due in part to lack of funds, and in part to the judiciary's often arbitrary decisions to order suspects held in pretrial detention facilities, and a very large prison population.

Inmates in the prison system often suffer from inadequate medical care. According to the GUIN, as of September 1, there were approximately 86,000 tuberculosis-infected persons and 21,576 HIV-infected persons in SIZO'S and correction colonies. Public health measures, funded by international aid and the doubling of government resources for the prison system's medical budget, have effected a limited reversal of the spread of tuberculosis but have not contained the spread of HIV. Prisoners with HIV/AIDS are not housed in separate facilities because of space shortages. Detention facilities have tuberculosis infection rates far higher than in the population at large. The Saratov Oblast administration, concerned with the tuberculosis crisis in its facilities, fully funds the tuberculosis-related medicinal needs of prisoners, according to the PCPR.

According to the PCPR, conditions in penal facilities vary among the regions. Some regions offer assistance in the form of food, clothing, and medicine. NGO's and religious groups offer other support.

Conditions in police station detention centers vary considerably but generally were harsh. In most cases, detainees lacked bedding, places to sleep, running water, toilets, showers, and adequate nutrition.

Suspects awaiting the completion of a criminal investigation, trial, sentencing, or appeal, are confined in a Special Isolation Facility (SIZO), which is a pretrial detention facility. Persons can spend up to 3 years awaiting trial in a SIZO; however, the new criminal procedure code places statutory limits on pretrial detention (see Section 1.d.). Convicts on occasion are imprisoned in SIZO's because there is no transport to take them elsewhere. Conditions in SIZO's remained extremely harsh and posed a serious threat to life and health. Health, nutrition, and sanitation standards in SIZO's remained low due to a lack of funding. Head lice, scabies, and various skin diseases were prevalent. Prisoners and detainees typically relied on families to provide them with extra food. Under such conditions, prisoners sleep in shifts, and there is little, if any, room to move within cells. In most pretrial detention centers and prisons, there is no ventilation system. Poor ventilation is thought to contribute to cardiac problems and lowered resistance to disease. Cells are overcrowded and stiflingly hot in the summer.

Pretrial detention conditions are so substandard that defendants sometimes claim to confess simply to be moved to comparatively less harsh prison conditions. Defendants who retract confessions made under these conditions usually are ignored, as are those who attempt to retract confessions they claim they were coerced to make (see Section 1.e.).

Correctional labor colonies (ITK's) hold the bulk of the nation's convicts. There are 749 ITK's, which are as crowded as SIZO's. Guards reportedly severely discipline prisoners to break down resistance; at times guards humiliated, beat, and starved prisoners. According to the PCPR, conditions in the ITK's are better than in the SIZO's to the extent that there is fresh air. In the timber correctional colonies, where hardened criminals serve their time, beatings, torture, and rape by guards reportedly were common. On September 11, procurators in Perm announced that they had brought charges of mistreating inmates against Special Forces Commander Sergey Bromberg, head of the strict regime prison colony at Chepets. Along with seven masked members of his unit, Bromberg was suspected of beating inmates at the prison colony. In October the Procurator announced that he had completed his investigation; however, there were no reports that a trial had begun by year's end. The country's "prisons"--distinct from the labor colonies or the ITK's--are penitentiary institutions for those who repeatedly violate the rules in effect in the ITK's.

Educational labor colonies for juveniles (VTK's) are facilities for prisoners from 14 to 20 years of age. In September GUIN reported that there were 64 educational colonies, 3 of which were for girls. Conditions in the VTK's are significantly better than in the ITK's, but juveniles in the VTK's and juvenile SIZO cells reportedly also suffer from beatings, torture, and rape. The PCPR reports that such facilities have a poor psychological atmosphere and lack educational and vocational training opportunities. Many of the juveniles are from orphanages, have no outside support, and are unaware of their rights. There also are two prisons for children in Moscow. Boys are held with adults in small, crowded, and smoky cells. Schooling in the prisons for children is sporadic at best, with students of different ages studying together when a teacher can be found.

In April the President, addressing the Federal Assembly, described the problem of disease in the prison system as a potential "Chernobyl." He stated that the Government was not in a position to ensure standard conditions of detention in penitentiary institutions and that the system's problems have become a national concern. According to the PCPR, in order to forestall a crisis, the system must either fund massive new construction and reconstruction of facilities--which is unrealistic under the country's economic conditions--or reduce the prison population.

To alleviate overcrowding, the Government announced an amnesty on September 1. According to the PCPR, more than 99,000 inmates were released (358 of them were juveniles). At year's end, the Duma had passed an amnesty bill affecting approximately 14,000 women and 10,000 child prisoners; however, statistics on the actual number released were unavailable at year's end. While amnesties have affected the overall number of prisoners, by most accounts the greater decrease was due to the increased use of alternative punishments such as selective parole for certain offenses. In Murmansk the local office of the Ministry of Justice actively pursued alternative punishments, and many convicted offenders are given sentences not involving incarceration.

The Government permits the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to work throughout the country and the ICRC is active especially in the northern Caucasus. The ICRC carried out regular prison visits, but by agreement with the Government, the ICRC's findings were kept confidential. The ICRC provides advice to authorities on how to improve prison conditions. The Government has allowed ICRC access to some facilities in the northern Caucasus where Chechen detainees are held; however, the pretrial detention centers and filtration camps for suspected Chechen fighters are not always accessible to human rights monitors (see Section 1.g.).

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

Arbitrary arrest and detention remained serious problems. The Constitution requires a judicial decision to make an arrest, take someone into custody, or detain someone suspected of crimes, and in December the legislature approved a new Criminal Procedure Code that provides for these protections; however, the new Code was not scheduled to begin being phased in until 2002, and authorities widely ignored existing provisions against arbitrary arrest and detention.

During the year, the court system continued to be governed both by the 1996 Criminal Code, and the amended Soviet Criminal Procedure Code. According to the Constitution, arrests, police detention, and searches require judicial approval; however, the Constitution also states that until the Criminal Procedure Code is brought into conformity with the Constitution, existing legislation--which provides for the Procuracy rather than courts to approve arrests and searches--remains in effect.

In the absence of measures to implement the procedural safeguards contained in the Constitution, suspects often were subjected to uneven and arbitrary treatment by officials acting under the Criminal Procedure Code and presidential decrees. Procurators were able to issue orders of detention without judicial approval and police detained suspects for up to 48 hours without a warrant.

The PCPR has reported terms of pretrial detention extending up to 3 years, with the average ranging from 7 to 10 months. However, in some extreme cases the PCPR reports total pretrial and during trial detention periods of up to 5 years due to financial constraints and poor investigative and court work. Most suspects are released on their own recognizance if they sign a promise not to leave a specified location, or if another person signs a promise that the suspect will appear for trial. Nonetheless, procurators often acted arbitrarily in ordering suspects to be kept in pretrial dentition, creating the potential for abuse, corruption, and bribery. This aggravates overcrowding in pretrial detention and, due to delays in bringing cases to trial, often result in pretrial detentions that exceed the maximum sentence for the charges faced by suspects accused of minor crimes. In juvenile prisons, inmates may await trial and sentencing up to several years.

In September the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg accepted the claim of Magadan businessman Viktor Kalashnikov that his rights under the European Convention had been violated both by the inhuman conditions of his detention (pretrial and trial) and by the excessive length of the detention period.

Extensions of the investigation period often are issued without explanation to the detainee. Until the investigation is completed, the suspect is under the jurisdiction of the Procurator's office, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Many suspects do not exercise their right to request judicial review of their detention due to fear of angering the investigating officer. There is no formal procedure for a suspect to plead guilty during the investigative period, although if a suspect informs the investigator that he is guilty, the period of the investigation usually is shorter than if he maintains his innocence.

There also were many credible reports that persons were detained far in excess of the period permitted for administrative offenses, in some cases so that police officials could extort money from friends or relatives of detainees. The practice of detaining individuals arbitrarily for varying periods of time, both within and in excess of permissible periods, is common, and often resolved only with bribes.

Often families are denied access to suspects in police detention; however, they generally have access to their relatives in pretrial detention.

The Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Code state that detainees are entitled to have a lawyer present from the time of detention, during questioning following detention, and throughout investigation up to and including the formal filing of charges; this procedure generally is followed in practice. The PCPR reports that detainees are given the opportunity to have access to a lawyer in accordance with their rights; however, it notes that the high cost of legal representation and the poor quality of court-appointed public defenders for those lacking the funds to engage counsel effectively deny most suspects competent legal representation (see Section 1.e.). As a result, many prisoners do not attempt to exercise this right because they believe such efforts to be futile. In many cases NGO's reported that investigators deny access to counsel by various means, including restrictions on the time when the suspect can see his lawyer (which may mean that the lawyer has to wait for days to get a meeting with the client). In October the Constitutional Court ruled that restrictions on lawyers' access to their clients held in pretrial detention centers were unconstitutional. A March amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code allows defendants immediate access to counsel when they have been arrested and referred for a psychiatric examination; this amendment was scheduled take effect in January 2002.

A new Criminal Procedure Code, passed by the Duma in March, was scheduled to be phased in between 2002 and 2004. The new Code stipulates that if the police have probable cause to believe that a suspect has committed a crime, or that the suspect is an imminent threat to others, they may detain him for only 24 hours, during which time they must notify the procurator, who then has 48 hours to confirm the charge or release the suspect. The new Criminal Procedure Code also will require that the Procuracy obtain a judicial order for arrest, search, or seizure. The new Criminal Procedure Code also calls for relatives to be notified of a suspect's arrest within 12 hours and that suspects have access to prompt counsel and prior to the first questioning. Under the amendment, pretrial detention for crimes carrying a sentence of less than 2 years is prohibited, unless the defendant poses a demonstrable flight risk; detention during trial is limited to 6 months, except where "particularly grave crimes" are involved. The new Criminal Procedure Code specifies that within 2 months of a suspect's arrest, police should complete their investigation and transfer the file to the procurator for arraignment. The new Code provides that a procurator may extend the period of criminal investigation to 6 months in "complex" cases. With the personal approval of the Procurator General, that period may be extended up to 18 months. Some suspects spend 18 months or longer in detention under harsh conditions in a SIZO while the criminal investigation is conducted (see Section 1.c.). Juveniles may only be detained in cases of grave crimes. The new Criminal Procedure Code includes a formal procedure for pleading guilty and includes incentives such as shorter sentences as well as shorter trials.

There were credible reports from throughout the country that police detained persons without observing mandated procedures and failed to issue proper arrest warrants or receipts for confiscated property. This especially was true for persons from the Caucasus. There were credible reports that security forces continued regularly to single out persons from the Caucasus for document checks, detention, and the extortion of bribes. According to NGO's, federal forces commonly detained groups of Chechen men at checkpoints along the borders and during "mop-up" operations following military hostilities and severely beat and tortured them.

Some regional and local authorities have taken advantage of the system's procedural weaknesses to arrest persons on false pretexts for expressing views critical of the Government. Human rights advocates in the regions have been charged with libel, contempt of court, or interference in judicial procedures in cases with distinct political overtones. Journalists, among others, have been charged with other offenses and held either in excess of normal periods of detention or for offenses that do not require detention at all (see Sections 2.a. and 4). Police reportedly planted drugs and other false evidence as pretexts for arrests, and arrested and detained persons based on their political views and religious beliefs. On June 6, officials at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow detained human rights activist Sergey Grigoryants, ostensibly for currency violations. His detention came 2 days after he publicly accused the FSB of harassing youth groups that did not maintain their loyalty to the Government. Grigoryants was on his way to a conference in the U.S., where he planned to deliver a critical paper on current domestic developments. After nearly 5 hours of detention, Grigoryants' lawyer secured his release, and Grigoryants was able to travel to the conference the following day.

On October 13, members of the Sunzhen regional department of the Interior Ministry in Ingushetiya detained the regional director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (ORCD), Imran Ezhiyev. The ORCD publicizes alleged abuses by federal military forces related to the conflict in Chechnya. Human rights activist Yelena Bonner, the International Helsinki Federation, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee, the Moscow Helsinki Group, and others protested Ezhiyev's detention. According to the ORCD, on November 13, after having him held for 1 month without charge, local authorities released Ezhiyev and apologized officially on behalf of President Putin for his unlawful detention. The authorities reportedly denied him medical care during his detention.

In February in a high profile case that was brought to the attention of the President, federal army soldiers detained overnight the well-known Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was in Chechnya attempting to investigate reports of torture and rape by the federal military. She was charged with violating accreditation procedures and regulations imposed by the military command (see Section 2.a.).

In June 2000, Taisa Isayeva, a Chechen journalist, who works for the Chechen Press agency based in Georgia, was arrested and detained at the Nizhniy Zaramag border checkpoint, between Russian North Ossetiya and Georgian South Ossetiya because she was carrying a video camera and a portable computer.

There were several detentions in relation to "espionage" cases involving foreigners who worked with Russians, and vice versa, who had obtained information that the authorities considered sensitive (see Section 1.e.). For example, in July 1999, the secret services arrested Vladivostok environmental scientist Vladimir Soyfer. Soyfer and his colleagues had been engaged in measuring the radioactive contamination resulting from a 1985 nuclear submarine accident in Chazhma Bay. A number of organizations, including the Committee of Concerned Scientists, contacted the authorities to urge them to stop their efforts to prevent the dissemination of information on environmental pollution. Reports indicate that in August, the FSB dropped its charges against Sofyer. He since has resumed his research and was suing the newspaper Obshchaya Gazeta for slander on its reporting of his case.

On December 25, the Pacific Military Court in Vladivostok sentenced Grigoriy Pasko a military journalist and active-duty officer in the Pacific Fleet to 4 years' imprisonment on one count of espionage. At year's end, Pasko was being held in solitary confinement in a Vladivostok jail. Many NGO's criticized the December 25 court decision, as did the speaker of the Federation Council (see Section 1.e.).

In June 2000, authorities detained Media-Most chairman Vladimir Gusinskiy in Moscow's Butyrka Prison for 3 days, in connection with the General Procuracy's criminal fraud case against him (see Section 2.a.). In July of that year, shortly after the Procuracy dropped its criminal case against him, Gusinskiy left the country. Later in 2000, the General Procuracy cited Gusinskiy's refusal to appear for further questioning on a broader criminal fraud case against Media-Most as grounds for seeking his extradition. Gusinskiy spent several months under house arrest in Spain while Spanish officials considered the Government's extradition request. In April the Spanish Government denied the Russian Government's extradition request out of concern that the charges were politically motivated.

The Constitution prohibits forced exile and the Government does not use it.

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and there were signs of limited judicial independence; however, the judiciary does not act as an effective counterweight to other branches of the Government. Efforts to develop an independent judiciary continued. Judges remained subject to some influence from the executive, military, and security forces, especially in high profile or politically sensitive cases. The judiciary continued to lack sufficient resources and was subject to corruption.

The judiciary is divided into three branches: The courts of general jurisdiction (including military courts); subordinated to the Supreme Court; the arbitration (commercial) court system under the High Court of Arbitration; and the Constitutional Court (as well as constitutional courts in a number of administrative entities of the Russian Federation). Civil and criminal cases are tried in courts of primary jurisdiction, courts of appeals, and higher courts. The general court system's lowest level is the municipal court, which serves each city or rural district and hears more than 90 percent of all civil and criminal cases. The next level of courts of general jurisdiction is the regional courts. At the highest level is the Supreme Court. Decisions of the lower trial courts can be appealed only to the immediately superior court unless a constitutional issue is involved. The arbitration court system consists of city or regional courts as well as appellate circuit courts subordinated to the High Court of Arbitration. Arbitration courts hear cases involving business disputes between legal entities and between legal entities and the state.

Judges are approved by the President after being nominated by the qualifying collegia, which are assemblies of judges. These collegia also have the authority to remove judges for misbehavior, and to approve procurator's requests to prosecute judges.

A 1998 law established a new system of Justices of the Peace to deal with criminal cases involving maximum sentences of less than 2 years and some civil cases. There were more than 4,500 Justices of the Peace throughout the country by year's end. These judges handle a variety of civil cases as well as criminal cases. In those areas where the system of Justices of the Peace had been implemented completely, there was a significant decrease in backlogs and delays in trial proceedings, both among those cases referred to the Justices of the Peace and in the courts of general jurisdiction, because dockets were freed to accept more serious cases more rapidly. In some regions, Justices of the Peace assumed approximately half of federal judges' civil cases and up to 15 percent of their criminal matters, which eased overcrowding in pretrial detention facilities (see Sections 1.c. and 1.d.).

Low salaries and a lack of prestige made it difficult to attract talented new judges and contributed to the vulnerability of existing judges to bribery and corruption. Working conditions for judges remained poor, and support personnel continued to be underpaid. Judges remained subject to intimidation and bribery from officials and others.

The new Criminal Procedure Code passed by the legislature in March and which is scheduled to be phased in between 2002 and 2004, provides for the strengthening of the role of the judiciary in relation to the Procuracy by requiring judicial approval of arrest warrants, searches, seizures, and detention. Moreover, the new Law on the Status of Judges, approved in December, strives to eliminate subjectivity in the selection of judges, to facilitate access to the judicial profession by minimizing corruption in the appointment process, and to improve the accountability of judges by subjecting them to disciplinary and administrative liability and by introducing age limits. In addition judicial training was mandated and strengthened during the year. The new Criminal Procedure Code also broadens the jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace to all crimes with maximum sentences of less than 3 years.

The Constitution provides for the right to a fair trial; however, this right is restricted in practice. Many defendants did not attempt to exercise their right to counsel, believing that such efforts would be pointless. NGO's also reported that investigators found ways to deny suspects access to counsel, such as by restricting visiting hours. Because suspects often did not exercise their right to counsel during pretrial questioning (see Section 1.d.), many defendants recanted testimony given during pretrial questioning, stating that they were denied access to a lawyer, that they were coerced into making false confessions or statements, or that they had confessed in order to escape poor conditions in pretrial detention facilities (see Section 1.c.). Human rights monitors have documented cases in which convictions were obtained on the basis of testimony that the defendant recanted in court, even in the absence of other proof of guilt.

The Criminal Code in effect during the year provided for the court to appoint a lawyer free of charge if a suspect could not afford one. An advocates' collegium president must appoint a lawyer within 24 hours after receiving such a request. However, lawyers (advocates) try to avoid these cases since the Government does not always pay them. The Society for the Guardianship of Penitentiary Institutions often is called upon by judges to provide legal assistance for suspects facing charges and trial without representation. This society operates primarily in Moscow, although it uses its connections throughout the country to appeal to legal professionals to represent the indigent. However, the high cost of competent legal representation meant that lower-income defendants often lacked legal representation.

Under the Criminal Procedure Code in effect during the year, a suspect charged with a crime punishable by a year of more in prison could be held in pretrial detention for up to 18 months and for an unlimited time during trial. Procurators delivered the case file to the court, whose responsibility it then became to prosecute the case. In many cases the procurator never attended the trial. The judge, or a panel of judges, conducted trials by asking questions based on their review of the procurator's case file. Criminal procedures were weighted heavily in favor of the procurator. Judges frequently returned poorly developed cases to the procurator's office for further investigation rather than dismiss them and offend powerful procurators, who have the power to review all such decisions themselves. In some cases, procurators reviewed a case an unlimited number of times: even after a defendant had been acquitted, the procurator could protest the acquittal and bring the case back to trial again and again.

The new Criminal Procedure Code, which was scheduled to be phased in between 2002 and 2004, provides suspects with the right to counsel no later than 24 hours after apprehension and prior to first questioning, mandates the participation of defense counsel in all questioning if the results are to be admissible in court (unless the suspect waives his right to counsel in writing), and allows for indigent suspects to receive counsel at state expense. The new Criminal Procedure Code also introduces an adversarial system, including jury trials in all regions and in all serious criminal cases. The interests of the court will be severed from those of the procurator, and the judge will be required to serve as an impartial arbiter between the two adversaries. The new Code mandates that all regions have such adversarial jury trials in place by 2003; at year's end, such a system was functioning in 9 of the country's 89 regions. Defense attorneys, defendants, and the public favor jury trials and adversarial approach to criminal justice, while procurators and law enforcement continued to prefer the inquisitorial system of trial by judges.

Authorities abrogated due process in several "espionage" cases involving foreigners who worked with Russians, and vice versa, who allegedly had obtained information that the security services considered sensitive (see Section 1.d.). Proceedings in such cases take place behind closed doors, and the defendants and their attorneys encountered difficulties in learning the details of the charges. Observers believe that the security services were seeking to discourage foreigners from investigating problems that the security services considered sensitive, and were concerned by the apparently undue influence of the security services.

In February the FSB arrested a foreign scholar, John Tobin, in Voronezh on drug charges. Subsequently FSB representatives publicized allegations that Tobin had spied against Russia, although no formal espionage charges were ever filed against him. Many domestic observers considered the drug charge and the espionage allegations to be a deliberate effort to discourage Russians from contact with foreign students. Tobin was convicted on the drug charge and served a prison term that eventually was reduced by parole to 6 months. On August 2, he departed the country; on September 19, the Supreme Court refused to overturn his conviction for drug possession.

In February the FSB arrested Valentin Danilov, a Krasnoyarsk physicist, accused him of selling sensitive information to China, and charged him with espionage and fraud. Danilov's colleagues protested publicly, stating that the information had been declassified 10 years ago. On December 17, the Krasnoyarsk regional court ruled that Danilov, whose health had deteriorated during his detention, could receive hospital treatment. Danilov's trial was ongoing behind closed doors in Krasnoyarsk at year's end.

In June an FSB spokesman in Omsk accused a foreign scholar of espionage, after she tasked her Russian students with an assignment to study the economic infrastructure of the region. After considerable media scrutiny, the FSB dropped the espionage charges, stating that it had reprimanded the visiting professor.

On October 3, 2000, Primorye Regional FSB authorities opened a criminal case against Vladimir Shchurov, Director of the Sonar Laboratory of the Pacific Oceanographic Institute. He was charged with divulging state secrets, the unlawful transfer of dual use technologies, and for smuggling contraband. Shchurov denied all charges. In October the first session of his trial took place in the Primorye regional court, where the judge returned the case for additional investigation. The regional procurator's office appealed that decision, which then went to the Supreme Court for review. Shchurov has been required to obtain special permission to leave the city and has been unable to work full time.

On December 25, the Pacific Military Court in Vladivostok sentenced Grigoriy Pasko a military journalist and active-duty officer in the Pacific Fleet to 4 years' imprisonment on one count of espionage. He also was expelled from the military, deprived of his rank and honors, and ordered to pay court costs. Both Pasko's defense team and the procurator appealed the verdict and sentence to the military collegium of the Supreme Court in Moscow. Pasko originally was charged with treason and espionage after reporting on radioactive contamination caused by the Pacific Fleet's dumping of radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan. In July 1999, after 20 months in pretrial detention, he was sentenced to 3 years' imprisonment for dereliction of duty but immediately was released under a prisoner amnesty; he then filed suit to clear his name. At the behest of procurators, the military collegium of the Supreme Court then dismissed the earlier conviction, sending the case back to the Pacific Military Court to be retried for the more serious charges of espionage and treason. In September the military collegium of the Supreme Court ruled that the Ministry of Defense's use of secret regulations to construct its criminal case against Pasko was unconstitutional and directed the ministry to bring its regulations into line with the Constitution. The Committee to Protect Journalists and the Glasnost Defense Fund observed that the case continued to be a powerful disincentive to investigative reporting (see Section 2.a.). At year's end, Pasko was being held in solitary confinement in a Vladivostok jail. Many NGO's criticized the December 25 court decision, as did the speaker of the Federation Council. The Committee for the Defense of Grigoriy Pasko organized demonstrations in Vladivostok, Moscow, and several other cities to protest the decision.

In November 1999, Igor Sutyagin, a disarmament researcher with the U.S. and Canada Institute, was detained on suspicion of espionage for allegedly passing classified information about the country's nuclear weapons to a London-based firm. Witnesses testified that the accused gave state secrets to a British NGO. No information about the specific charges was made public. Initially the case appeared to focus on his work on a study of civil-military relations funded by a foreign government; however, Sutyagin's family stated that the study did not deal in secret matters and was funded partially by the defense and foreign ministries. Sutyagin has maintained his innocence and stated that his analyses were based on open sources and not classified documents, to which he had no access. Evidence in the case is secret. According to Sutyagin's lawyers, he received copies of the detailed charges against him only in December 2000. The trial was recessed until January 9 and resumed in September, behind closed doors. On December 27, the Kaluga regional court ruled that the evidence presented by the procurator did not support the charges and returned the case to the procurator for further investigation. At year's end, Sutyagin remained in pretrial detention, and his lawyers had filed an appeal of the court's ruling that he stay in detention during the new investigation. Human rights activists complained that Sutyagin has not been afforded his full rights under the law. For example, they cite the defense's inability to cross-examine or learn the identity of witnesses for the prosecution.

Yuriy Savenko, Head of the Independent Psychiatric Association of Russia, and other human rights activists criticized the trial of Platon Obukhov, a Russian diplomat charged with espionage. Although independent psychiatrists deemed Obukhov mentally unfit to stand trial, a court-appointed commission found him competent; human rights activists charge that the evaluation was based on political considerations and pressure from the FSB. In June 2000, the Moscow city court sentenced Obukhov to 11 years in prison for espionage. In January the Supreme Court's collegium for criminal cases returned the Obukhov case to the lower court, despite the formal protest of the Procurator General's office, citing procedural irregularities. In June the Moscow city court ordered additional psychiatric evaluation, supervised by the Ministry of Health. At year's end, Obukhov was undergoing an evaluation at Moscow's Serbskiy Institute.

The Independent Council of Legal Expertise has reported that defense lawyers increasingly were the targets of police harassment, including beatings and arrests. Professional associations at both the local and federal levels have reported abuses throughout the country, charging that police tried to intimidate defense attorneys and cover up their own criminal activities.

On October 17, officials in the Procurator General's Office stated that more than 520,000 victims of Soviet political repression had been rehabilitated since the adoption in 1991 of a law requiring that their cases be reexamined. During the Soviet period, officials subjected large numbers of persons to political repression, including show trials, imprisonment, and execution.

There were no reports of political prisoners.

f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

Authorities continued to infringe on citizens' privacy rights. The Constitution states that officials may enter a private residence only in cases prescribed by federal law or on the basis of a judicial decision and permits the Government to monitor correspondence, telephone conversations, and other means of communication only with judicial permission. The Constitution prohibits the collection, storage, utilization, and dissemination of information about a person's private life without his consent; the 1999 Law on Operational Search Activity partially implemented these provisions, and the new Criminal Procedure Code will implement more of these provisions; however, problems remained. There were reports of electronic surveillance by government officials and others. Moscow law enforcement officials reportedly entered residences and other premises without warrants. The Government never has acted against authorities who violated these safeguards.

On March 28, according to a report in the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, a group of heavily armed Interior Ministry forces from a unit charged with fighting organized crime forcibly entered a Moscow State University dormitory where students from the National Chechen Theatrical Studio Nakhi were living, without presenting a warrant. According to the report, the authorities forced all of the students to lie on the floor while they searched the room and confiscated money and various items. The security forces later forced students to go to the unit's headquarters where they detained them for hours until finally releasing them without charges.

Internet experts and right-to-privacy advocates claim that interagency technical regulations called SORM-2 (System for Operational Investigative Measures) present a serious threat to privacy rights and violate the Civil Code and the Constitution. The Ministry of Communications, the FSB, the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information, and other agencies issue and administer these regulations, which provide a mechanism for the security services to monitor all telecommunications transmissions for investigative purposes. The regulations require a warrant to carry out such monitoring, in accordance with the Constitution and other provisions under the law; however, these regulations are not respected in practice. SORM-2 extends to the FSB the same kind of monitoring power over Internet communication as for telecommunication, but without workable provisions for judicial oversight (see Section 2.a.); there is no way to ensure that a warrant be obtained before the FSB begins monitoring Internet private communications.

Internet service providers are required to install, at their own expense, a device that routes all Internet traffic to an FSB terminal. Those providers that do not comply with the requirements face either loss of their licenses or denial of their license renewal. While SORM-2 framers claim that the regulation does not violate the Constitution or the Civil Code because it requires a court order, right to privacy advocates state that there is no mechanism to ensure that a warrant is obtained before the FSB accesses private information. There appears to be no mechanism to prevent unauthorized FSB access to Internet traffic without a warrant.

In 2000 Communications Minister Leonid Reyman issued an order stating that the FSB is no longer required to provide to the telecommunications and Internet companies any court documentation or information about targets of interest. Human rights activists suggested that this order only formalizes existing practices, established since SORM was introduced, of monitoring communications without providing any information or legal justification to those being monitored. In September 2000, the Supreme Court subsequently upheld the requirements that the FSB conduct monitoring only by court order and that it provide information to the company about the target of surveillance; however, despite this ruling, the oversight and enforcement of these provisions were inadequate in practice

In September 2000, President Putin signed the "Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation," which offers general language on protecting citizens' constitutional rights and civil liberties but also includes specific provisions that justify greater state intervention. For example, the Doctrine gives much leeway to law enforcement authorities in carrying out SORM surveillance of telephone, cellular, and wireless communications.

In November and December, the USMC reported several "round-ups" of conscript age males in Moscow, the northern Caucasus, and other regions. During such round-ups, at metro stations, or on the street, military officials stopped young males suspected of being subject to conscription and forcibly escorted them to the local military commissariat ("voyenkomat") for induction into the military. According to the USMC, the responsible military officials did not follow applicable regulations and included youths with valid student or medical exemptions in the round-ups, denying them the opportunity to notify their parents, a lawyer, or human rights advocates.

Allegations continued to circulate that officers in the special services, including authorities at the highest levels of the MVD and the FSB, have used their services' power to gather compromising materials on political and public figures as political insurance and to remove rivals. Similarly persons in these agencies, both active and retired, were accused of working with commercial or criminal organizations for the same purpose.

There were credible reports that regional branches of the FSB continued to exert pressure on Russian citizens employed by foreign firms and organizations, often with the goal of coercing them into becoming informants.

In October according to the Glasnost northern Caucasus publication, authorities forcibly expelled more than 100 Roma from the Krasnodar region to Voronezh, their officially registered place of residence. Authorities claimed that the Roma were involved in drug trafficking, although the police brought no formal charges against them.

Government forces in Chechnya looted valuables and foodstuffs from houses in regions that they controlled (see Section 1.g.).

g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian Law in Internal Conflicts

In August 1999, the Government began a second war against Chechen rebels. The indiscriminate use of force by government troops in the Chechen conflict resulted in widespread civilian casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of persons, the majority of whom sought refuge in the neighboring republic of Ingushetiya. Attempts by government forces to regain control over Chechnya were accompanied by the indiscriminate use of air power and artillery. There were numerous reports of attacks by government forces on civilian targets, including the bombing of schools and residential areas. In 2000 Russian forces began a large-scale offensive military campaign in Chechnya; that offensive campaign largely ended following federal occupation of most of Chechnya by the late spring of 2000, although federal forces remained engaged in an intensive anti-insurgency campaign against Chechen guerillas. In January President Putin announced that the active military phase of the struggle against separatism in Chechnya had been completed successfully and that an antiterrorist operation under the direction of the Federal Security Service (FSB) would begin immediately. The antiterrorist operation was marked by several large-scale clashes during the summer, most noticeably in the Argun gorge and the Vedeno district, and by several rebel attacks on population centers, such as a September 17 attack on Gudermes. At the end of May, federal forces were successful in killing rebel commander Arbi Barayev.

On September 24, President Putin broadcast an appeal to the rebels to stop all contacts with international terrorist organizations and to enter into discussions with federal officials within 72 hours on their disarmament and return to a peaceful life. He appointed the presidential envoy for the southern federal region, Viktor Kazantsev, an army general who had served in Chechnya, as a point of contact. On November 18, the two sides conducted initial talks; the topics of discussion were not revealed publicly. Low-level contacts were ongoing at year's end.

The security situation prevented most foreign observers from travelling to the region, and the Government enforced strict controls on both foreign and domestic media access (see Section 2.a.). Federal authorities--both military and civilian--have limited journalists' access to war zones since the beginning of the war in October 1999. Most domestic journalists and editors appeared to be exercising self-censorship and avoiding subjects embarrassing to the Government in regard to the conflict (see Section 2.a.). These restrictions made independent observation of conditions and verification of reports very difficult. Nevertheless there were numerous credible reports of human rights abuses and atrocities committed by federal forces.

A wide range of reports indicated that federal military operations resulted in numerous civilian casualties and the massive destruction of property and infrastructure, despite claims by federal authorities that government forces utilize precision targeting when combating rebels. The number of civilian fatalities caused by federal military operations cannot be verified, and estimates of the total number of civilian deaths since 1999 vary from hundreds to thousands. For example, in December 2000, seven students were killed when Russian forces fired mortar rounds on Groznyy State Pedagogical Institute. The local procurator was investigating the incident at year's end. The Chechen procurator's office continued to investigate numerous incidents, only a few of which resulted in convictions. The number of civilians injured by federal forces also could not be verified.

Reports from hospitals operating in the region indicated that many patients were landmine or ordnance victims, and that such weaponry was the primary cause of death. Since August 1999, government forces and Chechen fighters have used landmines extensively in Chechnya and Dagestan. In April 2000, the Government announced plans to mine its border with Georgia. There is no accurate information on the number of persons killed by landmines throughout the country.

In addition to casualties attributable to indiscriminate use of force by the federal armed forces, individual federal servicemen or units reportedly committed many abuses. Command and control among military and special police units often appeared to be weak, and a climate of lawlessness, corruption, and impunity flourished, which fostered individual acts by government forces of violence and looting against civilians. For example, according to Human Rights Watch and press reports, in February 2000, Russian forces executed at least 60 civilians in Aldi and Chernorechiye, suburbs of Groznyy. The perpetrators reportedly raped some of the victims, extorted money, and later set many of the houses on fire to destroy evidence. There were no reports of an investigation into or prosecutions in connection to these actions by year's end.

According to Human Rights Watch and other NGO reports, Russian soldiers executed at least 38 civilians in the Staropromyslovskiy district between December 1999 and January 2000. Most of the victims were women and elderly men, and all apparently were shot deliberately by Russian soldiers at close range. Similar events also occurred in Katr Yurt, were hundreds of already displaced persons were forced to flee, persons were killed, and houses were burned. Russian forces allegedly committed these abuses because Chechen fighters had passed through the village after retreating from Groznyy on February 5. According to human rights NGO's, government troops raped women in Chechnya in December 1999 in the village of Alkhan-Yurt and in other villages. There were no reports of an investigation in to these actions by year's end.

Throughout the year, there were reports of mass graves and "dumping grounds" for victims allegedly executed by Russian forces in Chechnya. On February 21, relatives of three Chechen men who had disappeared in December 2000 while in the custody of Russian soldiers, discovered a large number of bodies, belonging to their relatives and others, near the federal military base at Khankala. Federal law enforcement officials stated that they had found another 48 bodies from the village. By March 14 of the 48 bodies had been identified and the remaining 34 bodies were buried in a village outside Groznyy. Federal officials denied responsibility and there were no reports by year's end that the Government had opened an investigation into the killings (see Section 1.a.).

On April 10, the bodies of 17 men were discovered in a building in Groznyy that formerly was used by federal paramilitary forces. The deceased men all had bullet wounds and reportedly were civilians who had been killed by federal troops 6 months previously. The Presidential Envoy to the Southern Russia federal district initially confirmed that the bodies had been found; however, later during the investigation he claimed that there were no bodies found.

According to the NGO Memorial, government sources vary in their estimates of the number of missing persons. Memorial notes that in 2000 the office of Special Presidential Representative for Human Rights in Chechnya, Kalamanov, recorded an increase in the number of reported cases of missing persons from approximately 900 in early 2000 to approximately 3,000 at the end of that year. At year's end, the local department of the Ministry of the Interior in Chechnya had recorded approximately 700 missing persons (i.e. persons for whom the Ministry was searching). Also at year's end, the Chechen administration's missing persons commission had recorded approximately 1,400 reports of missing persons. On the basis of these sources, Memorial concluded that between 1,000 and 2,000 persons were missing in Chechnya at year's end. Memorial also compiled its own list of missing persons on the basis of verified reports, but it is not comprehensive; that list contained approximately 300 records at year's end.

A typical antiterrorist operation involved the "cleansing" of an area following a rebel attack on a block post or a vehicle carrying military personnel. In March a cleansing in Argun resulted in the deaths of four detainees. Other cleansings took place during the year in the villages of Alleroy (August), Staryye Atagi (August), Goyskoye (August), Tsotsin-Yurt (July), Chernorechiye (June), and in the Kurchaloy district (May and June). In the Kurchaloy district, members of the federal forces entered a private house on May 12 and fatally shot the owner and his son. On June 1, federal forces using trained dogs detained, beat, and attacked 30 men; two of the detainees disappeared. On June 16, federal forces detained 120 men; local residents found the bodies of 5 men on June 21.

In July following an explosion that killed five federal soldiers riding in a jeep, a particularly severe cleansing action took place in the villages of Sernovodsk and Assinovskaya. Males between 14 and 60 were lined up in the courtyards of houses in which they had been found. Some were able to buy their way out by paying an immediate levy, depending on the validity of their identification documents; cleansings also are a means for military and police personnel operating in Chechnya to supplement their incomes. Federal forces interrogated several hundred others who were unwilling or unable to pay the levies. During these interrogations federal forces beat and tortured the detainees by administering electric shocks. Private and public buildings were looted and destroyed. Federal forces took approximately 100 persons to filtration camps, but eventually released them with the exception of 4 or 5 persons who disappeared. The cleansing caused a temporary outflow of several thousand persons from the villages to refugee camps in neighboring Ingushetiya.

On October 7, a grenade fired from a passing federal military convoy killed a 10-year-old boy not far from Groznyy, resulting in demonstrations by local villagers that halted movement in the area.

On December 13, federal forces began a large scale cleansing operation in the city of Argun. Federal forces detained 150 persons, 40 of whom were detained at the insistence of the Chechen procurator, who had accompanied the federal forces who were conducting the cleansing. The "cleansing" continued for several days, during which time members of the federal forces stole and destroyed property in the houses they were searching. Approximately 15 bodies later were found at the detention points; it could not be determined whether those killed were rebels or civilians. During the last 2 weeks of December, the federal forces carried out similar operations in the villages of Gekhi, Chechen-aul Alkhazur, Tangi-Chu, and Tasotsin. Operations also began in Tsotsin-Yurt. At year's end, six persons from Tani-Chu were detained on unknown charges.

Reportedly armed forces and police units routinely abused and tortured persons held at so-called filtration camps, where federal authorities claimed that fighters or those suspected of aiding the rebels were sorted out from civilians. Federal forces reportedly ransomed Chechen detainees (and at times, their corpses) to their families. Prices were said to range from several hundred to thousands of dollars.

According to human rights NGO's, federal troops on numerous occasions, looted valuables and foodstuffs in regions they controlled. Many IDP's reported that they were forced to provide payments to, or were otherwise subjected to harassment and pressure by, guards at checkpoints.

There were some reports that federal troops purposefully targeted some infrastructure essential to the survival of the civilian population, such as water facilities or hospitals. The NGO Physicians for Human Rights reported that in 2000 physicians in Groznyy Ambulatory Clinic #5 and Groznyy City Hospital #4 stated that their hospitals were destroyed. The indiscriminate use of force by federal troops resulted in a massive destruction of housing, as well as commercial and administrative structures. Gas and water supply facilities and other types of infrastructure also were damaged severely. Representatives of international organizations and NGO's who visited Chechnya also reported little evidence of federal assistance for rebuilding war-torn areas.

There also were widespread reports of the killing or abuse of captured fighters by federal troops, as well as by the Chechen fighters, and a policy of "no surrender" appeared to prevail in many units on both sides. Federal forces reportedly beat, raped, tortured, and killed numerous detainees.

The Government investigated, tried, and convicted some members of the military for crimes against civilians in Chechnya. In September the official news daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that military courts had convicted 15 servicemen for crimes against civilians. Some of those convicted were amnestied. It was reported that of the 1,700 cases filed against servicemen by military procurators, 345 had been stopped for various reasons, including amnesties, and 360 had been handed over to the courts. In one high profile case, Colonel Yuriy Budanov, charged with abducting and murdering an 18-year-old ethnic Chechen girl, underwent a third psychological examination by government-appointed experts. The experts reportedly concluded that Budanov was insane at the time of the murder. Human rights observers alleged that the Government addressed only a fraction of the crimes federal forces committed against civilians in Chechnya.

International organizations estimated that the number of IDP's and refugees who left Chechnya as a result of the conflict reached a high of approximately 280,000 in the spring of 2000 (see Section 2.d.). At various times during the conflict, authorities restricted the movement of persons fleeing Chechnya.

From March 31 to April 4, 2000, U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR) Mary Robinson visited Chechnya to investigate allegations of human rights abuses; however, during the visit, according to Robinson's report to the UNCHR, Russian authorities denied her access to a number of locations, including five detention centers where Amnesty International alleged that Russian guards committed abuses against Chechen detainees. She also was denied access to villages near Groznyy where Russian troops were accused of killing and raping civilians. Robinson met with IDP's in Ingushetiya, who provided firsthand testimony of alleged violations of human rights by Russian military, militia, and Ministry of Interior forces in Chechnya. Authorities asserted that Robinson distorted the true nature of the state of affairs and that Russia never hid the truth about the situation in Chechnya.

In response to international criticism of the human rights situation in Chechnya, several federal government bodies were established to examine alleged domestic human rights violations. In February 2000, President Putin appointed Vladimir Kalamanov as Special Presidential Representative for Human Rights in Chechnya. Kalamanov's office, with a staff of 25 persons, including 3 experts from the Council of Europe, opened branches in Moscow and in a number of locations in the northern Caucasus to take complaints about alleged human rights violations. In April 2000, Pavel Krasheninnikov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Legislation, was elected head of a newly created Independent Commission on Human Rights in the northern Caucasus. In September 2000, the Commission opened nine offices in Chechnya and three in Ingushetiya. Together Kalamanov's office and Krasheninnikov's commission heard several thousand complaints from citizens, ranging from destruction or theft of property to rape and murder; however, neither organization was empowered to investigate or prosecute alleged offenses and had to refer complaints to the military or civil procurators. Almost all complainants alleged violations of military discipline and other common crimes. By October according to Kalamanov's office, 15 soldiers and officers had been tried and sentenced; 42 more were being tried. For the second year, the Federal Government did not comply with an April 2000 U.N. Commission on Human Rights resolution calling for a broad-based independent commission of inquiry to investigate alleged human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law.

Chechen fighters also committed abuses; however, as with the many reported violations by federal troops--there were difficulties in verifying or investigating them. According to unconfirmed reports, rebels killed civilians who would not assist them, used civilians as human shields, forced civilians to build fortifications, and prevented refugees from fleeing Chechnya. In several cases, elderly Russian civilians were killed for no apparent reason other than their ethnicity.

On September 3, a bomb exploded in the main Russian administration building in Groznyy, killing one woman. Mufti Alkhmad Kadyrov, the pro-Moscow head of the Chechen Administration, had been conducting a meeting on the third floor when the bomb was detonated.

According to Chechen sources, rebel factions also used violence to eliminate their economic rivals in illegal activities or settle personal accounts. Many Chechens believed that Arbi Barayev (killed at the end of May), Shamil Basayev, and their groups in particular used such violence.

Chechen fighters planted landmines that killed or injured federal forces and often provoked federal counterattacks on civilian areas. In other incidents, the rebels took up positions in populated areas and fired on federal forces, thereby exposing the civilians to federal counterattacks. When villagers protested, they sometimes were beaten or fired upon by the rebels.

Chechen fighters also reportedly abused, tortured, and killed captured soldiers from federal forces. In the summer, rebels began a concerted campaign to kill civilian officials of the government-supported Chechen administration.

Individual rebel field commanders reportedly were responsible for funding their units, and some allegedly resorted to drug smuggling and kidnaping to raise funds. As a result, it often was difficult, if not impossible, to make a distinction between rebel units and criminal gangs.

Some rebels allegedly received financial and other forms of assistance from foreign supporters of international terrorism. The international terrorist leader Usama bin Laden reportedly sent funds, personnel, and material to elements in the rebel camp. A number of the rebels are not ethnic Chechens and are from foreign countries. According to press reports, as many as 400 of Bin Laden's followers may have joined the rebels from his base in Afghanistan (see Section 1.a.). One rebel field commander, Ibn-ul-Khattab, is Saudi-born and reportedly was trained in Afghanistan by Usama bin Laden. In October presidential spokesman Sergey Yastrzhembskiy claimed that there were approximately 200 non-Chechen fighters in Chechnya.

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press; however, government pressure on the media persisted and in some respects increased significantly, resulting in numerous infringements of these rights. The Government exerted pressure on journalists, particularly those who reported on corruption or criticized officials, by: selectively denying journalists access to information including, for example, statistics theoretically available to the public and filming opportunities; demanding the right to approve and censoring certain stories prior to publication; prohibiting the tape recording of public trials and hearings; withholding financial support from government media operations that exercised independent editorial judgment; attempting to influence the appointment of senior editors at regional and local newspapers and broadcast media organizations; removing reporters from their jobs; bringing libel suits against journalists; and intimidating and harassing journalists. Faced with continuing financial difficulties and increased pressure from the Government and large, private companies with reported links to the Government, many media organizations saw their autonomy weaken during the year. During the year, two prominent independent broadcast networks, NTV and TV-6, faced intense governmental pressure, mainly as the result of hostile lawsuits brought by large, government-connected energy firms (Gazprom and Lukoil, respectively); many observers believed the Government to be sympathetic toward the plaintiffs in each case, and many observers alleged that there was political influence on court proceedings. Nevertheless, numerous national and regional media reflected a variety of opinions.

The Glasnost Defense Foundation (GDF), an NGO that tracks violations of the rights of journalists in the countries of the former Soviet Union, estimated that government agencies brought several hundred lawsuits and other legal actions against journalists and journalistic organizations during the year, the majority of them in response to unfavorable coverage of government policy or operations. During the year, judges rarely found in favor for the journalists; in the majority of cases, the Government succeeded in either intimidating or punishing the journalist. On March 11, the Kirovskiy Court in Yaroslavl brought criminal defamation and libel charges against the chief editor of City Television, Elvira Mezhenna, because of a May 2000 editorial in which she remarked, "It is no secret that in our oblast, federal departments are in fact subordinated personally to the governor." This case was the first in which criminal, not civil, charges were brought against a media representative.

In July Krasnoyarsk Governor Aleksandr Lebed attempted to gain ownership of the region's largest newspaper, Krasnoyarskiy Rabochiy, by filing lawsuits in regional arbitration courts. In October the court rejected the suit. Vladimir Pavlovskiy, the editor, stated that he believed the suits were filed because of reports in the paper critical of Governor Lebed. During the year, the governor of Yaroslavl oblast, the head comptroller inspector of the Ministry of Finance, and 31 other officials also filed libel claims against journalists. With some exceptions, judges appeared unwilling to challenge powerful federal and local officials. Stiff fines for journalists were a common result of these proceedings, as well as occasional jail terms. In a positive development, a court upheld a libel suit by former military reporter Aleksandr Nikitin against a newspaper that accused him of espionage.

Rulings upholding libel and other lawsuits against journalists served to reinforce the already significant tendency toward self-censorship. Many entry-level journalists in particular practiced self-censorship. In April Yuriy Vdovin, a prominent St. Petersburg-based media freedom activist, stated at a Moscow conference on press freedom that "young journalists are particularly vulnerable to self-censorship, because they are less protected from mistreatment by authorities. If a young reporter loses his job for political reasons, his chances of finding a new one are much lower than those of his older, more established colleagues. It is also more difficult for a young unknown journalist to rally public attention and support." In June 2000, the Security Council adopted an Information Security Doctrine, which outlines "threats to Russian national security" in the fields of "mass media, means of mass communication, and information technology"(see Section 1.f.). There were no discernible repercussions on the press from the Doctrine, although many observers continued to view it as an indication that the Kremlin considers the media to be subject to the administration and control of the Government. Although the document reaffirms the State's commitment to preserve the freedoms of expression and of access to information, it contains numerous clauses that, according to critics, can be interpreted broadly--and with negative effects on press freedom--by lawmakers and bureaucrats. For example, of particular concern, were the clauses calling for an "increase in propaganda activity to counter the negative effects of the dissemination of misinformation about the internal policies of the Russian state"; and "clarification of the status of foreign journalists and media outlets" working in the country, in order to "place them on an equal footing with the domestic media." The concentration of ownership of major media organizations--already a serious threat to editorial independence in 1999--increased during the year. The largest media empires (including media outlets owned by the federal, regional, and local governments) remained intact. However, Media-Most, the country's largest independent company, was under pressure by the Government and the Government resumed operational control of ORT.

The financial dependence of most major media organizations on the Government or on one or more of several major financial-industrial groups continued to undermine editorial independence and journalistic integrity in both the print and broadcast media. In particular, the concentration of ownership of major media organizations posed a growing threat to editorial independence during the year. The largest media empires (including media outlets owned by the federal, regional, and local governments) remained intact and, in some cases, grew. Government structures, banking interests, and the state-controlled energy giants United Energy Systems (UES) and Gazprom continued to dominate the Moscow media market and extend their influence into the regions. Continuing financial difficulties of most news organizations exacerbated this problem during the year, weakening their financial positions, and thereby increasing their dependence on financial sponsors and, in some cases, the federal and regional governments. As a result of this financial dependence, the media's autonomy and its ability to act as a watchdog remained weak.

In other important matters as well, private media organizations and journalists across the country remained dependent on the Government during the year. For example, according to the Glasnost Defense Foundation (GDF), some 90 percent of print media organizations continued to rely on state-controlled organizations for paper, printing, or distribution, while many television stations were forced to rely on the state (in particular, regional committees for the management of state property) for access to the airwaves and office space. The GDF also reported that officials continued to manipulate a variety of other "instruments of leverage" (including the price of printing at state-controlled publishing houses) in an effort to apply pressure on private media rivals. The GDF noted that this practice continued to be more common outside the Moscow area than in the capital itself. Private print and broadcast media, like other enterprises, were vulnerable to arbitrary changes in the policy and practice of tax collection. Although media routinely continued to receive tax breaks on high-cost items such as paper, the GDF and other media NGO's documented numerous instances of government use of taxation mechanisms to pressure media across the country. The Government also occasionally sought to limit reporting on tax matters.

In 2000 the Federal Security Service (FSB) office of the Volgograd region tried to impose a "cooperation agreement" on a number of local newspapers, including Volgogradskaya pravda, Inter, Gorodskiye vesti, and Delovoye povlozhye, which reportedly were pressured into signing the agreement. The document obliged the papers to clear with the FSB prior to publication all of their reports concerning the FSB and to print official FSB releases without comment. The locally based Center for Protection of Media Rights published the agreement, which attracted media attention across the country and subsequently was opposed by human rights advocates. No attempts to enforce the agreement had been made by year's end.

Journalists continued to depend on local authorities for accreditation for major news events. There were widespread reports of both favoritism toward reporters associated or aligned with the federal or local administration, and the denial of access to journalists representing independent media organizations. Journalists at Kommersant and Argumenty i fakty, two credible newspapers with fairly independent editorial stances, reported that criticizing the Kremlin had resulted in their being barred from the Kremlin pool, a limited group of journalists accredited by the Presidential press service for events in the Kremlin. The newspapers' exclusion from the pool affected their ability to report significant events and compete with media outlets loyal to the Kremlin.

The Government owns nearly one-fifth of the 12,000 registered newspapers and periodicals in the country and exerts significant influence over state-owned publications. In March the opposition newspaper Russkii Obozrevatel almost ceased publishing in the Republic of Bashkortastan; the newspaper's founder could not find a company in the Republic willing to publish the newspaper and was forced to publish in another oblast. A group of private distributors came together to produce the newspaper; however, many were threatened by local government officials with revocation of their licenses.

The Government owns approximately 150 of the 550 television stations in the country and indirectly influenced private media companies through partial state ownership of the gas monopoly Gazprom and the oil company Lukoil, which in turn own large shares of media companies. Of the three national television stations, the State owns Russian Television and Radio (RTR) and a majority of Russian Public Television (ORT); it also maintains ownership or control of the major radio stations Radio Mayak and Radio Rossii and news agencies ITAR-TASS and RIA-Novosti. The Government owns a 38 percent controlling stake of Gazprom, which in turn has a controlling ownership stake in the prominent, privately owned national television station, Nezavisimoye Televideniye (NTV). Since Gazprom's takeover of NTV in April, the Government was in a position to influence NTV's editorial stance. However, at year's end NTV, continued to assert some editorial independence.

The Government exerts its influence most directly on state-owned media. For example, in the spring, the senior staff of RTR--the station with the most extensive coverage area-- reported to media freedom observers that managers offered "guidance" to program announcers and selected reporters, indicating which politicians should be supported and which should be criticized; criticism of presidential policies was discouraged strongly and even prohibited. Correspondents claimed they occasionally were asked to obtain senior management approval for reports on sensitive political prior to broadcasting; occasionally "negative" language was edited out. At times, high-level presidential administration officials reportedly complained to RTR executives about reporting they viewed as critical of the President.

On October 30, officials from a local communications inspectorate suspended broadcasts of the independent radio station Viktoriya in Yakutsk for a month. The owner and general director Aleksandr Glotov stated that he believed that broadcasts were suspended because local authorities were trying to control independent media in the period prior to the December 23 presidential election in the Sakha republic (Yakutiya) (see Section 3). The station was allowed to broadcast again after Glotov successfully defended himself against the charges. On December 6, 2 weeks prior to the elections, Glotov was charged with inciting interethnic conflict and placed in a pretrial detention facility. During Glotov's interrogation, he was taken by ambulance to a hospital, placed in intensive care, and treated for a weak heart condition. While in the hospital, Glotov claimed that he probably was arrested because of an article in his Viktoriya-Sakha newspaper critical of Deputy Procurator and presidential candidate Vasiliy Kolmogorov. Glotov said the charge of inciting interethnic conflict was "laughable," since Viktoriya was the first independent radio station in Sakha to broadcast in the Yakutsk language. Communications officials suspended broadcasts for a month and stated that the suspension was necessary because the station lacked the proper technical documents.

At the regional and local levels, the governments operated or controlled a much higher percentage of the media than in Moscow; in many cities and towns across the country, government-run media organizations were the only major source of news and information, according to the GDF. As a result, in many media markets, citizens received information mainly from unchallenged government sources.

The struggle between Media-Most (owned by Vladimir Gunsinskiy) and Gazprom over control of NTV and other Media-Most properties continued during the year. At year's end, the court case against Media-Most financial chief Anton Titov was unresolved after a year of investigations and initial court decisions. Titov remained in pretrial detention where he has been since January 16, when he was arrested on charges of fraud. On October 29, the Procuracy General completed its investigation of the alleged embezzlement of $68,500,000 (5 billion rubles), use of false documents, and money laundering by Titov, and turned the case over to a judge. In early November, Moscow's Cheremushkinskiy intermunicipal court returned the case to the prosecutor for further investigation, saying the initial inquiry had failed to provide evidence of a crime. The Procurator General called the court decision "baseless" and filed an appeal with the Moscow city court, which returned the case to the Cheremushkinskiy intermunicipal court on December 26.

In April the majority stockholder of Media-Most, the government-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom -seized some Media-Most properties in response to Gusinskiy's inability to meet a $262 million (7.5 billion rubles) scheduled debt payment that had been guaranteed by Gazprom. Gusinskiy reportedly had signed an agreement with Gazprom-Media chief Alfred Kokh just before leaving the country in July in which he pledged to sell a controlling share of his media enterprises to Gazprom. Gusinskiy insisted publicly that he had signed under duress, citing a protocol to the agreement that was cosigned by Press Minister Mikhail Lesin. Many observers interpreted the protocol as a quid pro quo in which the Government agreed to drop its criminal investigations of Gusinskiy and Media-Most in exchange for receipt by Gazprom of a controlling share in NTV and Media-Most. The Government characterized the case against Media-Most as strictly financial; however, the synchronous efforts and harsh tactics of the Procuracy, the MVD, the FSB, and the tax police to gather evidence for their court case against Media-Most reinforced the impression that the Government intended to aid Gazprom in its takeover (see Section 1.d.).

Also in April, tax police raided the offices of cable television network Territoriya Nashego Telezritelya (TNT), which had hired some of the journalists who quit NTV in protest over the Gazprom takeover. The action was taken ostensibly over a $6,675 (19,277 rubles) tax bill that had been paid in September 2000. In April on the basis of an article in the civil code that prohibits companies from showing a negative balance for more than 2 years, the majority stockholder won a suit to close down the heavily indebted Segodnya newspaper--the flagship of the Gusinskiy media empire. Also in April, the majority owner also replaced the entire management and reporting staff of Itogi magazine. In May procurators raided the offices of the radio station Ekho Moskvy, the only profitable Media-Most property, supposedly searching for incriminating financial documents. This action frightened away advertisers for some time; however, Ekho Moskvy continued to operate independently at year's end.

In September a provision of the joint stock companies law that allows a minority shareholders to force the liquidation of companies showing a negative balance for more than 2 years was invoked against TV-6, another privately owned television station with a reputation for independent news coverage. TV-6 had hired a number of NTV journalists who had quit NTV to protest Gazprom's take over. Minority shareholder Lukoil-Garant, a pension fund that owns 15 percent of TV-6, won a claim in the Moscow Arbitration Court to liquidate TV-6's parent company, which is 75 percent owned by the oligarch, Kremlin critic, and exiled businessman, Boris Berezovskiy. Media freedom experts generally considered the ruling to be a government-supported effort to remove TV-6 from the control of Berezovskiy, accused of financial crimes in an unrelated case, and to remove a management team headed by Yevgeniy Kiselev that had moved to TV-6 after the Gazprom takeover of NTV. On December 29, an appeals court overturned the September ruling and returned the case to a lower court for review. Although the formal link between the Government and TV-6 does not extend beyond a 16-percent government stake in energy giant Lukoil, in the view of most independent observers the timing of the suit (brought precisely when TV-6 was becoming profitable), the unusually expeditious handling by the courts, the actual court rulings, and the speed with which the Government rushed to implement and enforce those decisions all point to the suit's non-commercial motives.

At times local government officials actively restricted freedom of the press, particularly during election periods. In March Nizhniy Novgorod's regional head administrator Sergey Vasin enlisted the aid of local police to turn off the local television transmitter, because he claimed that he had been denied legally mandated access to airwaves during his campaign. The station's director stated that Vasin had been offered an opportunity to participate in an election program with other candidates, but turned it down. In March in Bashkortostan, the editor of the opposition newspaper Russkiy obozrevatel had difficulty finding a publisher or distributor after publishing an article criticizing the Bashkortostani president; private distributors of Russkiy obozrevatel claimed that government officials had warned them against selling copies. In June Irkutsk law enforcement officials confiscated all copies of Vostochnosibirskiye vesti, reportedly the only newspaper that had criticized Governor Boris Govorin, who was up for reelection in July; this was the 19th confiscation of the newspaper since its founding in 2000. The reasons for these confiscations are not known. In September the Lipetsk Press Ministry suspended the broadcasting license of the independent TVK television company in the midst of an ownership and management dispute over the station. During a court-contested shareholder's meeting on August 24, shareholders replaced former station director Aleksandr Lykov with business executive Dmitriy Kolbasko, who reportedly was favored by the incumbent governor Oleg Korolev. Lykov told the media advocacy organization, Committee to Protect Journalists that he believes the Korolev administration supported the change in management in order to influence reporting prior to the April gubernatorial election.

Journalists who published critical information about local governments and influential businesses, as well as investigative journalists writing about crime and other sensitive issues, continued to be subjected to death threats and threats of beatings and other physical violence by unknown assailants. Journalists frequently were attacked physically, although in the majority of these cases, no direct link was established between the assault and the authorities who reportedly had taken offense at the reporting in question. A number of independent media NGO's have characterized beatings by unknown assailants of journalists as "routine," noting that those who pursued investigative stories on corruption and organized crime found themselves at greatest risk.

During the year, authorities harassed and abused Olga Kitova, a correspondent for Belgorodskaya Pravda and a member of the Belgorod regional parliament, because of her reporting on regional government officials. In January the Union of Journalists revoked her first prize award for investigative reporting. On March 21, the Belgorod Oblast procurator opened a criminal case against her, charging her with "insult and violence" against state officials. Subsequently 10 police officers detained her outside her home, beat her, and took her to a hospital for treatment. The police claimed she was arrested for failing to respond to a summons; however, as a member of the regional parliament, she legally was immune to questioning or arrest on criminal charges. On May 22, police arrested Kitova again; the arresting officers presented neither identification nor a warrant for her arrest. She was taken to a temporary holding cell in the district police station where she apparently suffered a heart attack. After a dispute between two doctors regarding her fitness for transfer to the pretrial detention center, she was taken to the city hospital and treated for acute hypertension and heart ailments. On May 28, the Western District Court of Belgorod ruled that her arrest was unlawful on procedural grounds, but the procurator successfully appealed the decision in June. On June 8, the hospital discharged her. On September 3, Kitova's third trial began but was recessed on October 26 because of her ill health. In December Kitova received a 21/2 year suspended sentence on the libel charges and her lawyers filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. She remained free pending trial at year's end.

Media NGO's and the press reported a number of killings of journalists, presumed to be related to their journalistic work, and dozens of other attacks on journalists. As in 2000, police seldom identified the perpetrators of crimes against journalists. On May 17, Vladimir Kirsanov, a local newspaper editor from Kurgan, was reported missing after his bloodstained documents were found on the bank of the Tobol river in Kurgan. Many of Kirsanov's colleagues believe he was killed because of his investigative reporting on corruption among oblast officials, and because of his reported conflict with oblast governor Oleg Bogomolov. According to the newspaper Versiya, on May 23, the Kurgan oblast procurator's office opened a criminal investigation, which was ongoing at year's end; representatives of the Glasnost Foundation and Reporters Without Borders assisted with the investigation.

On September 19, Eduard Markevich, editor of Novyye Reft, was shot and killed. Colleagues claimed that Markevich had received threatening phone calls prior to the shooting, and colleagues and media advocacy groups believe that Markevich was killed because of his investigative reporting. Markevich often had criticized local authorities and law enforcement, and on September 16, he participated in local parliamentary campaigns. In 2000 authorities detained him for 10 days after the local procurator charged him with defamation because of an article he wrote questioning the propriety of a government contract.

Previous murders of journalists still unsolved included the September 2000 killing of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty correspondent Iskander Khatloni. At the time of his death, Khatloni had been investigating alleged human rights abuses by the federal military in Chechnya; the July 2000 killing of Igor Domnikov, a journalist with Novaya Gazeta; and the July 2000 killing of Sergey Novikov, president of independent radio station Vesna.

In November 2000, a trial began for the 1994 killing of Dimitriy Kholodov, the military affairs correspondent for the news daily Moskovskiy Komsomolets, who was killed when he opened a briefcase full of explosives. The six defendants include former intelligence chief of the airborne infantry Colonel Pavel Popovskikh, three other officers, and two civilians. On August 28, witnesses testified that the explosive materials in Kholodov's briefcase did not come from military stock and weighed less than 50 grams, undermining the case against Popovskikh. In October the judge was hospitalized and the trial was recessed; however, the trial had resumed in the Moscow okrug military court by year's end.

The northern Caucasus region continued to be dangerous for journalists. Kidnapings and assaults remained serious threats. In addition federal authorities--both military and civilian-limited journalists' access to war zones and confiscated reports and equipment. The Government required reporters to obtain special accreditation besides the usual Foreign Ministry accreditation for entry to the region. In some cases, foreign journalists publicly complained that military officials in the northern Caucasus region made it excessively difficult for them to obtain local press accreditation. In February in a high profile case that was brought to the attention of the President, federal army soldiers detained overnight the well-known Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who was in Chechnya attempting to investigate reports of torture and rape by the federal military. She was charged with violating accreditation procedures and regulations imposed by the military command. Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, a senior presidential aide for public information on Chechnya, stated that Politkovskaya had a valid accreditation for Chechnya, but could travel in Chechnya only if she informed officials of her plans. The Russian branch of the international writers' defense organization PEN strongly criticized her arrest. Politkovskaya was released unharmed, but stated that her FSB interrogators threatened her with death while she was in detention. International publicity surrounding her detention may have played a part in her release. Politkovskaya continued to cover Chechnya during the year, but in October decided to leave the country after receiving more death threats. She stated that the death threats were associated with her September 20 article alleging that a government helicopter downed on September 17 in Groznyy had been shot down by federal forces, not rebels as alleged by authorities. Politkovskaya remained abroad at year's end.

In May and June, a poll conducted among adults throughout the country by the Institute for Comparative Social Research reported that 7 percent of adults have access to the Internet and that Moscow and St. Petersburg have the highest number of users. Access appears to be unrestricted, but the Government requires Internet service providers to provide dedicated lines to the security establishment so that police can track private email communications and monitor activity on the Internet. The syst