HRC "Memorial" resumes its work in Chechnya

Starting today, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" resumes the full scope of its work in Chechnya. It was suspended after the murder of the human rights defender Natalia Estemirova, as Oleg Orlov, the head of the Centre said at a press conference in the European Parliament.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that today in Strasbourg members of the "Memorial" Oleg Orlov and Sergey Kovalyov, and the chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group Liudmila Alekseeva received the award adjudged to them on the 20th anniversary of the death of the Soviet dissident and the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andrei Sakharov. The Chairman of the European Parliament expressed his gratitude to all Russian human rights defenders.

"Today we state that we resume in full our activities in the territory of the Chechen Republic. This fateful decision was made after consultations with our employees in Northern Caucasus and a big group of Russian and international human rights organizations," Mr Orlov told journalists after the 2009 Andrei Sakharov's Prize awarding ceremony.