Members of the Presidential Council on Human Rights on their visit to Chechnya

Chernokozovo is the village where the detention facility was situated, the staff of which was accused of torture and abuses over prisoners. The topic was “promoted” by the journalist of Radio Svoboda, Andrey Babitsky, who was arrested by army intelligence and kept in the detention facility for a while. “This is a real death camp. Chechens are beaten there,” Babitsky said. The Russian authorities rejected the information, and the delegation of the European Committee on Prevention of Torture which visited Chechnya in April 2000 didn’t express any demands to the detention facility. In 2005 a maximum-security penal colony was established in Chernokozovo. Human right activists criticized it as well.

Recently, members of the Presidential Council on Human Rights travelled to Chernokozovo and examined changes in the situation in past years.