Moscow-sponsored rights conference in Chechnya is boycotted by major human rights groups, activists say it has been designed to cover up abuses in the troubled Caucasus republic, the Reuters news agency reported March 1.
The conference is a Kremlin attempt to lend legitimacy to Ramzan Kadyrov, the region's newly appointed Moscow-backed bloody puppet accused of widespread human rights violations in the Muslim republic, the groups say.
Moscow says the event is being held there to show Chechnya is returning to peace after almost two decades of military conflict between Russian forces and Chechen separatists.
"I don't believe it's possible to improve the situation in Chechnya through contacts with Kadyrov," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Helsinki Group rights organization in Moscow.
"Human rights organizations in Moscow refused to attend the event. Kadyrov is responsible for kidnappings and abductions of many innocent people whose bodies are being found with torture signs on their bodies, or not found at all."
Kadyrov, a 30-year-old murderer and puppet, also stayed away from the widely advertised conference, leaving the event to a handful of local officials and low-key Chechen rights defenders.
The only figure of international status attending it was Thomas Hammarberg, the European commissioner for human rights. In Chechnya on a fact-finding mission, he accused its leadership this week of using systematic torture in prisons.
Other participants included Ella Pamfilova, chair of Russian President Vladimir Putin's human rights advisory council, and Kadyrov aides.
Outside a new Finance Ministry building in the Chechen capital Djokhar where the conference was taking place, two dozen Chechen women rallied holding pictures of their missing sons.
Rights activists say hostage-takings by security forces have become widespread in Chechnya, while torture is systematic in secret prisons and illegal detention centers. Arbitrary charges are regularly brought against innocent civilians, activists say.
They accuse Kadyrov's men of using illegal arrests and torture. Kadyrov, promoted by Putin to acting main puppet this month, denies the charges.
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