From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 8/22/2007 11:09 AM
August 22nd 2007 · Prague Watchdog / Umalt Chadayev     
    
    
How to become a "shaitan" in Chechnya

Umalt Chadayev

CHECHNYA - On August 18 three young men were detained by the local security forces in the village of Assinovskaya, Sunzhensky district. They were asked to give the whereabouts of a man they knew who was suspected of belonging to the armed resistance.

All three of the young men were subjected to questioning. One of them was accused of being a Wahhabi, as he did not smoke or drink.

The man, an 18-year-old Assinovskaya resident who wishes to remain anonymous, describes his experience as follows: "That day guerrillas stopped three residents of our village near Bamut, in Achkhoi-Martanovsky district, one of whom they shot, accusing him of having informed on two of their comrades, who'd been killed as a result (see details). After that, the police went to 'work' as usual. Initially they arrested two of my friends, and then took me down to the police station as well."

"I was asked to give the whereabouts of one of my classmates who was rumoured to have gone over to the guerrillas. I said I didn't know where he was, and then they hit me several times and put me in handcuffs, made me sit on a chair, connected a wire to my body and began to electrocute me. Meanwhile they kept shouting at me to answer their question," the young man says.

"Then one of them asked me why I didn't smoke or drink alcohol. I replied that I did both, though I never have. The man laughed and said : "No, we know you don't drink or smoke! That means you're a 'shaitan' (the name that law enforcers in Chechnya commonly use to refer to Wahhabi, meaning that all members of armed groups), though you're still a 'covert' one as yet!'."

"This abuse and torture seemed to me to continue for a whole eternity. I was lucky, because a relative of one of my friends, a police officer, happened to be there. He requested my release. They also let the other two students go. They had also been beaten and tortured, even worse than me," he said.

The young man says that neither he nor the other two men who were illegally detained and subjected to beatings and torture intend to complain to law enforcement officials about their unlawful actions. "We know there's no point," he contends. "If I make a complaint, it may cost me dear."

"I'm afraid, not for myself but for my family - my parents, sister and other relatives. They (the law enforcers) are capable of anything. If they want to, they can arrest anyone and say he's a guerrilla, or a Wahhabi, as they called me, just because I don't drink or smoke, don't use drugs. Now I understand how our law enforcement system 'works', how it breaks people by falsifying evidence and then sends the innocent to jail. All that matters to them is to capture someone and claim it as a great success - they're not interested in anything else. Tomorrow anyone could end up the same way I did," he says.

http://www.watchdog.cz/?show=000000-000008-000001-000455&lang=1