Human Rights Watch issued a report condemning the Russian...

Human Rights Watch issued a report condemning the Russian government's human rights policies in Chechnya. The group accused the Kremlin of using harassment and lies to force civilians from refugee camps and allowing its military to beat and abduct Chechen civilians with virtual impunity. The group also stated that Chechen guerrillas had ignored global conventions banning human rights abuses in internal conflicts. The guerrillas ''are believed to be responsible for a continuing pattern of assassinations of village administrators and other civil servants working for the pro-Moscow government in Chechnya,'' the report said. ''At the same time, abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya -- forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, looting and arbitrary detention -- have continued unabated.'' The organization also stated that it had documented a number of executions and ''disappearances'' attributed to Russian soldiers, including the November 2002 slaying of a human rights activist, Malika Umazheva, which it called ''the first clearly retaliatory murder of its kind.''