Establishing state mechanisms for the protection of human rights in post-Soviet Russia has been an uncertain endeavor. While the nongovernment sector quickly embraced the public space created by perestroika , the evolution of state-sponsored initiatives has taken a more problematic course. The judicial system has witnessed substantial reform, yet continues to face enormous challenges, which have been determined by a number of constituent factors: psychological, financial, and political. This study seeks to examine the performance of another agency of state accountability, the Russian human rights ombudsman, and to consider its contribution to democracy building in Russia. In discussing the historical context in which the office was established, the direction in which it has developed, and its performance and attendant political responses, this article contends that despite the vicissitudes that shaped its beginnings, the office of the human rights ombudsman is making a valuable contribution to the expansion of administrative justice in contemporary Russia, as it begins to hold government agencies accountable for state human rights violations.
Destroying the insurgents under the cover of night is the most eff ective strategy in this war. Th ey are scared of it. And they don't feel safe anywhere-neither in the mountains nor at home. -Russian offi cer I was in the kitchen. I quickly opened the window and saw that he was being dragged into the car by his collar. . . . Th ere were four of them, without masks, Chechens. -Chechen civilian witness I want to know where my son is detained and why. . . . I don't even know where he is and how he is. It's winter, my child went out in a T-shirt and barefoot. -Rashan Alieva, December 2000the visual hallmarks of the second chechen war manifested in the zachistka-the sealed villages, trucks laden with looted property, and temporary fi ltration points on the outskirts of villages-began to diminish by the summer of 2003. Under growing pressure from the Council of Eu rope, the Rus sian government was forced to ease the large-scale sweep operations in an eff ort to rein in the impunity. Th e worst appeared to be over. But this picture of growing calm was highly misleading. Large-scale sweep operations were gradually replaced by an increasing number of targeted sweeps (adresnaia zachistka), nighttime abductions, and disappearances. 1 As one military intelligence offi cer admitted in the pages of Izvestiia, "Large operations are no longer necessary. We need night operations, directed and Brought to you by | Stockholms Universitet Authenticated Download Date |
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