MEMORIAL RELEASES DOCUMENTS.

The well-known Russian human rights organization “Memorial” has released documents concerning the charged situation in the Kurchaloevsk District of Chechnya. On January 9, the pro-Moscow chief of administration of the district, M. Taramov, and the chairman of the local Council of Elders, A. Ibliev, wrote an open letter to the deputy plenipotentiary representative of President Putin in the Southern Federal District and to other officials complaining: “The Administration of Kurchaloevsk District, in the name of the populace of the district, expresses particular alarm and dissatisfaction with the actions of the federal troops based on the territory of the district…. The mockery of the peaceful inhabitants has elicited a broad social resonance. Particular indignation has been elicited by the fact that ‘mopping up operations’ are not agreed in advance with the administration of the district…. There have been coarse infringements of the law and of legal order by those forces whose duty it is to establish precisely that order.”