Mandate Prolonged For Council Of Europe Human Rights Experts In Chechnya

Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Schwimmer has decreed that the mandate be prolonged until the end of the year for the Organization's experts working in the Office of the Russian President's Special Representative for human rights in the Chechen Republic, based at Znamenskaya, Chechnya, sources in the Organization's Secretariat in Strasbourg, France, disclosed Friday. The sources added Schwimmer had consulted Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on the decision. According to the decree, the Council of Europe experts "will be still instrumental in completing the work now in progress", despite the positive developments in the human rights situation in Chechnya. Schwimmer feels the experts' mandate would "depend on the adequate follow-up by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office to complaints of human rights violations" by the population.