BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom
Source: Chechenpress web site, Tbilisi, in Russian

Chechens the world over have collected signatures for anappeal to the Council of Europe and the European Commission.

The appeal says:

Esteemed members of the Council of Europe and the European Commission,

Over the last 300 years of Russian occupation Chechnya has felt all the "charms" of colonization, particularly mass killings, destruction, mass deportation, which take place once in fifty years on the average.

About 150,000 Chechens (15 per cent of the population) have been killed, 250,000 people became refugees and the majority of them are currently forced to live in monstrous and inhumane conditions. Dozens of thousands of civilians and fighters of resistance detachments have lived and are living in the reality of the prison of Russian democracy - in filtration camps with constant torture, rape, extortion and mass punishment. Each passing day is increasing the long list of the killed, injured and disabled.

You are aware of these figures and facts. These events are happening today, not in Stalin's time. These things are happening in Russia, which is suffering and is making Chechnya suffer as well.

Esteemed members of the Council of Europe and the European Commission,

You have no other choice if you do not want to betray human values and the ideals of freedom and democracy and if you do not want to become not only an accomplice to these crimes with you passivity, but also a conscious ally of the killers, and thus become perpetrators of the tragedy in Chechnya today. You have already lost a great deal of time. You must finally make a move.

You should call on Russian President Vladimir Putin to start talks with [the president of the] Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov, on the decolonization of Chechnya as soon as possible.

You should demand the initiation of the process of the international recognition of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria.

[Kavkaz-Tsentr news agency reported on 13 August that the Transnational Radical Party had sent this letter to the Council of Europe and other European organizations.]