It's been less than a week since valiant Russian human rights groups Memorial won Europe's llustrious human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, but it seems that Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is determined to pull the plug on any celebrations. Kadyrov won a civil libel suit against the organization's Chairman Oleg Orlov earlier this month, regarding the activist's public affirmation that the Chechen leader was responsible for the murder of fellow Memorial representative Natalya Estemirova in July.  Kadyrov has now opened a criminal libel suit against Orlov, which carries a prison sentence of up to three or four years. This from the AP: The case stems from Orlov's statement in July that Chechen President ...

Memorial, fresh on the heels of an insulting lawsuit from Chechen leader Ramzan Kadryrov, holds a rally to commemorate slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya today:Hundreds of people are rallying in Moscow on the third anniversary of the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.They are calling for authorities to find and punish the killers of journalists and human rights activists in Russia.Politkovskaya was a harsh critic of the Kremlin and exposed widespread human-rights abuses and corruption in Chechnya. The person who ordered her contract-style killing has not been found.Her editor Dmitry Muratov told the crowd that "there is a political will in not solving the murders" of Politkovskaya and others.UPDATE:  If you Twitter, you may want to consider putting ...

Right when Dmitry Medvedev probably feels like he is riding high, earning the first major concession from the United States toward Russia in more than a decade with the withdrawal of the missile plan, acting the role of a democrat president at the UN and G20, and riding an equities boom, there just had to be something to come along and undermine.  That something is named Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen leader most recently seen in the news following the long series of unsolved human rights murders.Chechnya and the North Caucasus in general has been falling apart at a rapid rate over the past number of months, so one could understand that Kadyrov may be looking for a useful distraction or excuse for an expansion of state repression.  Why not default to the time honored tradition?"We're ...

From the Reuters report on Vladimir Putin's surprise visit to Grozny to stump for the increasingly embattled Chechen appointee Ramzan Kadyrov, and lay flowers at the grave of his father, former Chechen leader Akmad Kadyrov.  Also see the comments posted to the government site - which makes me realize that Putin had not set foot in Chechnya since October 2008.Surrounded by heavily armed guards in camouflage and with sub-machineguns at the ready, the two men laid a basket of red and white roses at the tombstone of Kadyrov's father, Akhmad, who was killed in a bomb blast in 2004. "It is thanks to this courageous man that the war ended. He gave his life for Russia and Chechnya," a sombre Putin said, to a ...

TODAY: Merkel condemns activist murder; explosive violence in Caucasus; South Ossetians encouraged to disarm.  Medvedev merciless on Yushchenko; Venezuela and Russia tighten relations; military may scrap underperforming missile.  'Absolutely unacceptable' is how Chancellor Angela Merkel described the recent murders of NGO worker Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband  and instructed Medvedev that 'actions must also follow'.  Medvedev has ordered Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to punish those responsible for the slayings.  The end of last week andthr beginning of this week are particularly bloody in the Caucasus, with over twenty people killed in different shootouts.  The New York Times reports that South Ossetian citizens, for whom 'a weapon is an essential part of daily life', are being ...

When the Chechen human rights worker Natalia Estemirova was snatched off the streets of Grozny and later deposited in a roadside ditch with a few bullets to the head, the grotesque brutality of the act was hard to swallow.  In response, not all the much was done.  In Russia, the event was not even a blip on the media radar, and mourners at her memorial were even harassed and arrested.  Outside of Russia, Estemirova was given generous and sympathetic treatment (here is a good example), but the sadness and outrage on the editorial pages did not translate into any concrete political action.The costs of inaction on the renewed violence in Chechnya are very high, as this week we ...

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty takes the time to pick apart the words of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov - the consistencies and contradictions reveal, well, a frightening and important reality.Many aspects of Kadyrov's interpretation of the events of the past 15-20 years in Chechnya are open to question. He has emphatically denied (in an April 2009 interview with "Rossiiskaya gazeta") ever having fought on the side of the resistance during the 1994-96 war. At the same time, he has admitted having as a boy regarded ChRI President Djokhar Dudayev as "a national hero." In a statement in December 2006 to mark the 12th anniversary of the Russian attack on Chechnya, Kadyrov blamed the onset of the war on "the shortsighted and irresponsible policies of the political leadership of both Russia and Chechnya at that time." But he now argues that both the 1994-96 war and ...