My name is Karinna Moskalenko and I direct the work of the Center for Cooperative International Defense, which assists many victims of terror acts in Russia.  As you have already heard here, our measures have been ineffective in national courts, and so I represent them in appeals to the

In doing so the respected lecturer fully left out the question about the obligations of a government to provide the right to life.

Here I would like to examine the problem of this human rights convention, which was adopted by the

The convention of obligations of a government to provide the right to life presumes the among other matters:

1. The prevention of terror acts.

And yet those persons who were responsible for the movement of a huge amount of weaponry into the very center of the capital city and other Russian cities still remain unrevealed.

2. It follows that an entire system of measures to prevent terror acts also applies to a government’s obligations, including the correct formation and introduction of national policies in the international government body, as well as many other general measures.  For the Russian authorities, especially, I would like to stress the quality of those means of prevention: their refusal to admit to illegal violations of the rights of peaceful residents of the Caucasus region while conducting counter-terrorism operations to ensure that terrorists cannot find a base of moral support for their activities among the populace.

3. The minimization of losses through all available means.
Examining cases where the conduct of the negotiation process aimed at releasing hostages was unsuccessful, or where the authorities refused to do so, and this led to the death of large numbers of people.

4. Among a government’s obligations is an independent, thorough investigation: all my clients can point to the absence of this.  In the ‘Nord-Ost’ case, for example, over the many years that the hopeless investigation was prolonged, it was never determined:

- how many people died, since the prosecutor general’s decisions contain differences in the numbers of dead amounting to several dozen;

— why no medical assistance was provided to 69 persons, why, in general, had the proper medical operation not been organized as soon as a military operation using of gas had been carried out;

— what exactly was the gas that was used; the gas was labeled as harmless, and yet carried away hundreds of lives – this substance is beyond a doubt a toxic agent.  What was this substance, was this substance banned, for example, as a chemical weapon, was it banned and therefore the government’s secrecy in this regard is understandable…*

Our appeals in court complaining about the actions and inactions of the Moscow city prosecutor general have been without result.

When the single defendant accused of ‘Nord-Ost’ was put on trial, every victim (of ‘Nord-Ost’) was deprived of his or her right to participate in the case as a plaintiff or witness, or even to be present in court.  When speaking about the single defendant, I would like to remind you all that every other potential defendant was killed down to the very last one, and they were never brought to court and made to answer, and neither were the negligent representatives of the government.

I would like to point out that among our clients are victims who suffered from terrorism, as well as victims of government anti-terrorism activities.

Neither one, nor the other can achieve an independent investigation; both one and the other have been going from prosecutors’ office and courts for years and suffering long-term humiliation.

The mother and father of Igor Finogenov, who died at Dubrovka, they are a distinguished, elderly couple, and yet they were publicly humiliated by the judge during court proceedings.  In response to my attempt to defend them from these unfounded attacks, the court ruled to discipline me.  Other plaintiffs confirm that this has happened to them, and that this is the usual way they are treated (by the authorities). 

Even more difficult are cases against the government’s anti-terrorism activities.  We help families who have lost their loved ones: relatives who were killed, lost, and kidnapped.  Investigations of these cases are not conducted, because it is impossible to count on the proper investigation when formal charges are not brought and real measures to solve these categories of crimes are not used.  That the investigation of such cases is improper is not my personal conclusion, but a fact that proven more than once in decisions by the

My colleagues are attorneys from Grozny and Nazran, and are constantly under the most severe of repression.  Our organization, which has been persecuted for the last two years, has now met with a new problem.  Members of the organization are now being summoned for interrogation for the reason that they are working on Chechen cases, and they are told that they taking part in anti-government activities.  Today I declare: no, we do not consider our work to be an anti-government activity, it is to defend Russian citizens, and is therefore an activity that is useful and important for Russia.

We will henceforth occupy ourselves with defending the rights of people who are victims of terror acts, but it is necessary that an independent investigation into the circumstances of peoples’ deaths be conducted.  Russia has not fulfilled its obligations under the October 2003 UN Human Rights Convention.