More of the World's Worst

My first post on this blog was about Parade Magazine's list of the World's Worst Dictators. Although this report carries a bit more diplomatic weight, today I'm going to talk about what CNN calls the State Department's list of World's Worst Abuses. The report is formally called Country Reports on Human Rights Abuses, 2006 and the genocide in Darfur tops the list. For my analysis of Sudan and the report, check out my blog. Here I want to talk about the report's discussion of Chechnya.

Russia's abuses in Chechnya are highlighted in the report's introduction:
Russia experienced continuing centralization of power in the executive branch, including amendments to election laws and new legislation for political parties that grants the government broad powers to regulate, investigate, limit, and even close down parties...these trends resulted in the further erosion of government accountability. In Chechnya and other areas of the North Caucasus, serious human rights violations continued, including unlawful killings and abuses of civilians by both federal and Chechen Republic security forces. Rebel fighters committed terrorist bombings and politically motivated disappearances in the region. In a growing number of cases, the European Court of Human Rights held Russia responsible for these abuses.

That's not the only mention of Russia in the report. It comes up again in a discussion of governments that are resistant to political and social change:
...Freedom of expression and media independence declined due to government pressure and restrictions. In October unknown persons murdered human rights defender Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent journalist known for her critical writing on human rights abuses in Chechnya. The government used its controlling ownership of all national television and radio stations, as well as of the majority of influential regional ones, to restrict access to information deemed sensitive.

It's good that the State Department is giving attention to the human rights abuses in Chechnya - an area that has been neglected in the mainstream press. Hopefully the increased international scrutiny will help prevent the ethnic tensions there from boiling over into something even worse.