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PEN American Center, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Center for the Humanities, the Graduate Center, CUNY present:

The Writer's Conscience: Remembering Anna Politkovskaya and Russia’s Forgotten War

Proshansky Auditorium
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street)
7:00 p.m.

With:

Natalia Estemirova of the “Memorial” Human Rights Center in Grozny
Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor of The Nation)
Musa Klebnikov (wife of American journalist Paul Klebnikov, who was murdered in Russia in 2004)
Kati Marton (author and journalist)
Dana Priest (Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for The Washington Post)
David Remnick (editor of The New Yorker).

Featuring Scenes from the Film "Democracy on Deadline"

On Wednesday, December 6, at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium, PEN American Center and the Committee to Protect Journalists will present an evening of readings, film, and discussion in response to the murder of renowned Russian journalist and author Anna Politkovskaya.

Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on October 7, 2006 in a contract killing in the elevator of her apartment building in Moscow. On the day of her death, she was finishing an article on torture in Chechnya, the latest in her seven-year effort to chronicle and expose the human rights abuses and horrors of Russia’s “War on Terrorism” in that region. Her killing—the 13th contract-style assassination of a journalist in Russia since Vladimir Putin became president in 2000—shocked the world and deepened doubts about the direction of democracy in Russia.

The evening will include scenes from the documentary film Democracy on Deadline featuring Anna Politkovskaya; readings from her work; and a conversation with Natalia Estemirova of the “Memorial” Human Rights Center in Grozny about Anna Politkovskaya’s work and the current situation in Chechnya. In addition to Ms. Estemirova, program participants include Katrina vanden Heuvel (editor of The Nation); Musa Klebnikov (wife of American journalist Paul Klebnikov, who was murdered in Russia in 2004); Kati Marton (author and journalist); Dana Priest (Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for The Washington Post); and David Remnick (editor of The New Yorker).

This event is free and open to the public.

Directions: B/D/F/V/N/Q/R/W to 34th Street

For information, call PEN at (212) 334-1660, ext. 107 or visit www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/911/prmID/172

Panel Discussion "Human rights violations and war crimes in Chechnya: a critical assessment of local and international responses"

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Part of "Europe's Darkest Corner: New York Photo Exhibition and Event Series on Chechnya" at the International Center for Tolerance Education (more information)

International Center for Tolerance Education (ICTE)
25 Washington Street
4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY
7pm

Speakers:
Anne Heindel, Deputy Director, War Crimes Research Office at American University
Rachel Denber, Human Rights Watch, Deputy Director Europe and Central Asia Division
Andrew Meier, former Time correspondent in Moscow and now freelance journalist
Additional speakers to be announced

Moderated by Roy Gutman, Newsday and founder of the Crimes of War Project

Human rights violations and accusations of war crimes have been at the center of Chechnya's story for more than a decade. They have devastated people's lives and added new grievances that fuel a cycle of violence and prevent chances of peace. Despite extensive documentation and vocal advocacy by local, Russian and international human rights organizations, real improvement, accountability and justice have remained elusive. Our expert panel will provide an overview of human rights violations and alleged war crimes to date, as well as an analysis of the record of local, Russian and international efforts to bring about change and end impunity.

Please RSVP by Monday, November 27 to ICTE@tmf-tolerance.org.

Directions: F train to York Street, A/C to High Street, 2/3 to Clark Street (1st stop in Brooklyn). Click here for a map.

TV Premiere of "Democracy on Deadline: the Global Struggle for an Independent Press" (features a portrait of Anna Politkovskaya)

The PBS series Independent Lens will broadcast the documentary "Democracy on Deadline: the Global Struggle for an Independent Press" about the threats and challenges reporters face all over the world when doing their job. The documentary includes a segment on Anna Politkovskaya and her struggle to cover events in Chechnya and other injustices in contemporary Russia. The documentary was produced by Cal Skaggs and Lumiere Productions.

The documentary will be shown on most PBS stations across the US. To find out local broadcast schedules, go to www.pbs.org/independentlens/democracyondeadline./

Panel Discussion "Public Health Crisis in Chechnya and Beyond: Post Conflict and Persistent Challenges"

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Part of "Europe's Darkest Corner: New York Photo Exhibition and Event Series on Chechnya" at the International Center for Tolerance Education (more information)

International Center for Tolerance Education (ICTE)
25 Washington Street
4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY
5:30pm (with reception to follow)

The two wars of the last decade and a half and the massive dislocation and destruction they brought have created a public health emergency in Chechnya and parts of neighboring Ingushetia. The collapse of the health care system has only partially been reversed and serious shortcomings in patient access, equipment for diagnosis and treatment, staff skills and availability of urgently needed medicines remain. Public health challenges like tuberculosis (often drug-resistant), mental health problems, reproductive and child health have reached near-epidemic proportions or worse. The armed conflicts have left tens of thousands of amputees and invalids in their wake, to whom state of the art therapy and protheses are not available. On the ground, people are deeply troubled by the severe health crisis that affects their families and communities and identify urgent action in this field as an absolute priority.

As the decline in armed violence finally allows for better assessment of, and investment in, public health, what are the main challenges, how will they be addressed and what can we learn from similar crises around the world? These issues will be outlined and discussed at our comprehensive panel of Chechen and international public health experts who have either worked in Chechnya or post-conflict situations elsewhere. A list of participants, including their bios, is below.

Please RSVP by Friday, October 27 to ICTE@tmf-tolerance.org.

Directions: F train to York Street, A/C to High Street, 2/3 to Clark Street (1st stop in Brooklyn). Click here for a map.

Participants:

Bree Akesson is currently the treatment facilitator for the Child Psychiatric Epidemiology Group at the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene. In 2005, she monitored and evaluated child and adolescent psychosocial programs for the International Rescue Committee in Chechnya and Ingushetia. Ms. Akesson is the former program director of Outside the Dream Foundation and former program coordinator for the Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University. She has also worked as a consultant for Basic Support for Institutionalizing Child Survival (BASICS), as a youth development counselor at the Erickson Center for Adolescent Development, and as an advisory board member for the International Organization for Adolescents. From 2001 to 2002, she lived and worked in Kenya as a public health volunteer for the United States Peace Corps. Ms. Akesson has a Masters of Public Health in Forced Migration and Health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and a Masters of Science in Health, Mental Health and Disabilities from Columbia University’s School of Social Work.

Khassan Baiev is the Chairman of the International Committee for the Children of Chechnya and is a Chechen surgeon who lives in the United States and works to promote the health and safety of Chechnya's children. He is the author (with Ruth and Nicholas Daniloff) of "The Oath" (Walker & Company, 2003), a memoir of his experiences in Chechnya's two most recent wars. As a surgeon striving for medical neutrality in the Russian-Chechen war zone, Dr. Baiev witnessed first-hand the devastating toll prolonged military operations take on civilians. Guided by the Hippocratic Oath of giving help to all in need, Dr. Baiev treated both Russian soldiers and Chechen fighters, with the result that both sides wanted him dead. He also tended to and mourned more than his share of innocent victims. Dr. Baiev has been honored by Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Physicians for Human Rights, and Amnesty International for his work.

Richard Garfield (moderator) is a Professor of Nursing, Coordinator of a WHO/PAHO Nursing Collaborating Center at Columbia University, and Visiting Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He combines qualitative perspective of community health promotion and the quantitative skills of epidemiology to assess morbidity and mortality changes among civilian groups in humanitarian crises around the world. He has assessed the impact of economic embargoes in Cuba, Haiti, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan Iraq, and Liberia for national governments and UN organizations. He has visited Iraq each year since 1996 to collaborate with UNICEF, the World Food Program, and the Iraqi Ministry of Health and pioneered a meta analysis of nutritional status during the 1990s. Since the 2003 invasion, he worked in Iraq for WHO, UNICEF, the International Medical Corps, the UN and others to assist in reconstruction, manage reactivation of health services, and prepare the post-Oil for Food UN program. He is currently assisting the Iraqi Ministry of Health to redesign health worker training and human resource development, is a member of the Humanitarian Assessment group of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the UN Oil for Food Programme, and assists the UN Statistical Division in assessing the impact of conflict and disaster on the Millennium Development Goals. As a nurse, he is involved in capacity development among primary care nursing staff in Aceh, Indonesia, Rwanda, and Mississippi USA.

Daniel J. Gerstle has served as a humanitarian aid worker, researcher, and journalist in Somalia, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Croatia, and Bosnia. This past year he served as Community Development Specialist and Grant Writer with the International Medical Corps in Russia's North Caucasus. At Columbia University, Mr. Gerstle completed a Master of International Affairs with a public health focus, specializing in food security, nutrition, and livelihoods in complex emergencies. He now works as a freelance writer and consultant based in New York.

Supriya Pillai has been working as the Program Officer for Asia at the International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC) since October 2005. She has many years of diverse experience in gender, health, and international development, gained through various projects and positions across Southeast Asia and West and Central Africa. Prior to joining IWHC, Supriya worked with Population Services International (PSI), a leading social marketing organization, first in Washington and later in West Africa, where she supported projects in ten countries. Based in West Africa during a time of intense regional conflict, Supriya gained insight into how war plays itself out on women's bodies, particularly in light of the growing HIV/AIDS pandemic. She has also worked in Cambodia where she managed PSI’s marketing and communications teams.

Leonard S. Rubenstein has been Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights since 1996. Mr. Rubenstein has spent twenty five years engaged in advocacy for human and civil rights. Mr. Rubenstein has engaged in extensive field work in human rights in Bosnia, Israel, Chechnya, the West Bank and Gaza, Kosovo and South Africa, and is a principal author of reports including Human Rights and Health: The Legacy of Apartheid and Endless Brutality: Human Rights Violations in Chechnya. Mr. Rubenstein has written extensively in the field of human rights, medical ethics and mental health, including in human rights, legal and medical journals and published numerous op-ed articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe and other newspapers. Mr. Rubenstein serves on the board of directors of InterAction and Mental Disability Rights International, and is a member of the Human Rights Committee of the American Public Health Association and the Committee on International Human Rights Law of the Individual Rights Section of the American Bar Association. Mr. Rubenstein is the recipient of the Congressional Minority Caucuses’ Healthcare Heroes Award, the National Mental Health Association’s Mission Award and the Political Asylum Representation Project’s Outstanding Achievement Award.

San Francisco Candlelight Vigil for Justice in the Murder of Anna Politkovskaya

October 19, 2006:

Media Talk: The killing of Anna Politkovskaya - Russia’s Dirty Secrets

Frontline Club
13 Norfolk Place
London W2 1QJ
7:30pm

For more information, go to www.frontlineclub.com/events/future-events.html

Memorial Gathering for Anna Politkovskaya at the International Center for Tolerance Education

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

International Center for Tolerance Education (ICTE)
25 Washington Street
4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY
6pm-8pm

Please join us to honor the memory of Anna Politkovskaya, the Moscow-based observer for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta who was slain on October 7. Anna was a passionate and dedicated journalist and writer, who wrote about Chechnya like no one else did. She was the mother of two children, she was a dear friend, and she was someone who many of us heard speak or met in the U.S. or in Moscow. She was widely admired throughout Russia and the world for her courage and passion and will be missed sorely by her family, colleagues, and readers, and by the victims of war and injustice she wrote about.

The ninth day is a special day of commemoration in Russia; according to Russian peasant tradition, the soul leaves the body and is guided by angels to its next destination. Anna’s colleagues at Novaya Gazeta have called on the Russian public to mark this day, October 16, in her honor. We will share memories, collect condolence wishes, and give guests a moment to speak out about this terrible loss. We will show brief excerpts from a documentary film and read passages from Anna Politkovskaya’s works. If you have something you would like to share (photos, texts, candles, flowers, etc.) please bring it to create a temporary small memorial in her honor.

We would also like to take this opportunity to discuss options for commemorating Anna Politkovskaya’s legacy more publicly and permanently, for example by establishing a scholarship, lecture fund, award or other type of memorial in her name in the United States. If you or your organization are interested in contributing to such an effort, please write to almut@chechnyaadvocacy.org or mipohl@vassar.edu.

Directions: F train to York Street, A/C to High Street, 2/3 to Clark Street (1st stop in Brooklyn). Click here for a map.

This event is open to the public. Please RSVP until Friday, October 13, to can@chechnyaadvocacy.org

Candlelight Vigil in Memory of Anna Politkovskaya

Vigil in Honor of Slain Russian Journalist Anna Politkovskaya

Outside the Russian Federation's Embassy to the United States
2650 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC
6:00-6:45 pm

Speakers include:

Maureen Greenwood, Advocacy Director for Europe and Eurasia, Amnesty International USA
Paula Schriefer, Advocacy Director, Freedom House
Joyce Barnathan, President, International Center for Journalists
Jane Ransom, Executive Director, International Women’s Media Foundation
Satsita Muradova, affiliated with Memorial, a Russian human rights organization
Dimitri Klimenko, frequent interpreter for Ms. Politkovskaya

Europe's Darkest Corner: New York Photo Exhibition and Event Series on Chechnya - Opening Event

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

International Center for Tolerance Education (ICTE)
25 Washington Street
4th Floor
Brooklyn, NY
6pm-9pm

From October 2006 through February 2007, the International Center for Tolerance Education (ICTE) of the New York-based Third Millennium Foundation will host a photo exhibition and event series on Chechnya, titled "Europe's Darkest Corner. Photographs from Chechnya 1994-2005". Throughout the exhibition, the ICTE will present thematic panels with Chechen and international experts, film screenings and opportunities to learn about Chechnya from visiting NGO activists from the region, making this the most long-running and comprehensive event dedicated to Chechnya in the US to date. The Chechnya Advocacy Network is proud to be ICTE's main partner in this effort. The exhibition will feature the work of renowned photographers Heidi Bradner, Stanley Greene, Mikhail Galustov, James Hill and Thomas Dworzak. Opening speakers will Rachel Denber (Human Rights Watch), Almut Rochowanski (CAN) and Marco Stoffel (Third Millennium Foundation), as well as some of the featured photographers.

Join us for a reception with regional food, drink and music. Please RSVP by September 29 to ICTE@tmf-tolerance.org.

Dr. Mikhail Roshchin: Russia and Chechnya

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Dr. Mikhail Roshchin, writer, scholar and peace activist, will speak Tuesday, September 26th at the San Francisco Friends Meeting at 7 pm. Dr. Roshchin has written extensively on the nexus of religion, ethnicity and power in the North Caucasus. He is a Senior Research Analyst at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the clerk of the Moscow Friends Meeting. He has also coordinated the publication of "The Power of Goodness", a peace education resource book in Russian, Chechen and English for Chechen children and youth. Dr. Roshchin will speak about the wars of the past decade in Chechnya, the current situation in the North Caucasus and how this troubled region has affected all of Russia.

San Francisco Friends Meeting is located at 65 9th St. between Market and Mission in San Francisco. It is near the Civic Center BART and MUNI stop. For more information, please contactSandra Schwartz at sschwartz@afsc.org or by phone at 415 565 0201, ext. 24.

Additional background information about Dr. Roshchin can be found at:
http://www.jamestown.org/authors_details.php?author_id=258

Building Islamic States on the Edge of Empire: Historical Reflections on the North Caucasus

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
2:30 pm

Moshe Gammer, Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University "Shamil's Imamate: its Role and Significance"

Michael Reynolds, Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University "Islam and Politics in Post-Imperial Space: the North Caucasus, 1917-1918"

The panel will be moderated by Professor Mark von Hagen, Harriman Institute/Columbia University

The nuances of the North Caucasian past are often ignored, while the current conflicts in this region are read in terms of historical determinism, as though the ways things are now is the way they always were and always will be. New readings of this neglected history stand to tell different stories about a region which is often discussed but rarely understood.

The speakers will examine familiar issues in North Caucasian history from fresh perspectives. Moshe Gammer will explore the influence and legacy of Imam Shamil, who created and maintained a state for twenty-five years which united Chechnya and Dagestan.
Michael Reynolds will look at the relationship between Islam and politics as the Russian Empire disintegrated and revolution swept through the North Caucasus one the eve of the formation of the Soviet Union. They will consider the many ways in which the North Caucasian mountaineers negotiated the task of creating indigenous forms of government, responding both to the exigencies of imperial power and to realities which predated contact with Russia.

A discussion will follow the presentations. Anyone else interested in the less understood aspects of a region on Russia's periphery is welcome to attend.

Moshe Gammer's books Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan (1994; Russian translation 1998) and The Lone Wolf and the Bear. Three Centuries Chechen Defiance of Russian Power (2006) together provide the most comprehensive account of Northeast Caucasian history available in English. He is a Senior Lecturer of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University.

Michael Reynolds is currently working on a book project tentatively titled "Shattering Empires: the Ottoman-Russian Struggle for the Caucasus and Anatolia." His article "Myths and Mysticism: A Longitudinal Perspective on Islam and Conflict in the North Caucasus" was recently published in the journal Middle Eastern Studies. He is an Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

To help us gauge interest and prepare seating, please RSVP to can@chechnyaadvocacy.org.

Jamestown Foundation Conference: The Future of the North Caucasus

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Root Room (2nd Floor)
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
8:30am - 5:00pm

Situated on Russia's southern frontier, the North Caucasus is a volatile tinderbox of ethnic tension and Islamic separatist movements. For nearly ten years, Chechnya was the centerpiece of regional instability, but the conflict has increasingly spilled over into neighboring republics comprising the North Caucasus. With only 5.5 million people, the region's sparse population does not pose a demographic challenge to Russia. Militarily, however, the North Caucasus continues to preoccupy Moscow's power ministries and absorb significant amounts of Russian manpower. The recent shift in dynamics with the deaths of Chechen President Abdul-Khalim Sadulaev and Chechen military commander Shamil Basaev have made the future of the North Caucasus even more unclear.

In this major conference hosted by The Jamestown Foundation, leading experts from around the world will gather to discuss the future of this important region, and the implications it has for stability along Russia's southern tier.

The keynote speaker at the conference will be Mr. Paul Goble, the vice dean for social sciences and humanities at Audentes University, Tallinn who will speak on "The Future of the North Caucasus." A selection of speakers featured at this event include:

Dr. Pavel Baev, Norwegian Peace Research Institute
Dr. John B. Dunlop, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Marie Bennigsen, Specialist, the North Caucasus
Andrei Smirnov, North Caucasus Correspondent, Jamestown Foundation
Mikhail Roshchin, Senior Research Analyst, Russian Academy of Sciences;
Dr. Andrew McGregor, Director, Aberfoyle International Security Analysis
Dr. Moshe Gammer, Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University Murad Batal al-Shishani, Specialist, Islamist Movements in the North Caucasus.

RSVP by 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 to rsvp@jamestown.org

Local Repression and Local Resentment Surrounding Islamic Movements in the North Caucasus: Insights from the Field

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Presentation by Kelly McEvers , International Reporting Fellow, Johns Hopkins University

Moderator: Professor Peter Sinnott, Harriman Institute

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
6 pm

Kelly McEvers has been covering the impact of Islamic movements in the North Caucasus during the past months. On her most recent trip to the region in late March, she was detained in Dagestan by local security forces and prosecutors and interrogated for three days about her research and intentions. Her computer and notebook were confiscated. Read more about Kelly's ordeal here.

Kelly McEvers is a freelance writer and radio producer based in New York City. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and the Village Voice and contributed to radio programs such as “This American Life,” “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition,” “Marketplace,” and “The World.” In 2003 and 2004 she was a freelance correspondent for National Public Radio based in Jakarta, Indonesia. From 1999-2000 she lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and worked for the BBC, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Cambodia Daily. She began her career as a staff writer for the Chicago Tribune's Internet and print editions. She is the founding editor of www.SixBillion.org, an online magazine of narrative journalism.

Please RSVP to can@chechnyaadvocacy.org.

A Transitional Aid Strategy for the North Caucasus

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Presentation by Stephen Tull, Head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the Russian Federation

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
4pm

Stephen Tull will speak about the decision by the UN's humanitarian and development aid agencies as well as their NGO implementing partners to move from purely humanitarian aid to a more structural approach that focuses on reconstruction, capacity building, governance and economic development. OCHA's Russian Federation office (www.ocha.ru) supports the inter-agency UN and NGO humanitarian operation in the North Caucasus and leads fundraising from government donors. From 1999 to 2005 strategic planning and fundraising was conducted through a Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal (CAP), which has been replaced by a Transitional Workplan for 2006 (both can be downloaded here.) The Transitional Workplan is a CAP-plus; it contains the same humanitarian program but also gives more emphasis to capacity building, training, and socioeconomic recovery as an early step to enable an eventual phasing down of the humanitarian program. For more information about humanitarian and development activities in the North Caucasus, take a look at CAN's humanitarian coverage.

The event is open to the public. Please RSVP at can@chechnyaadvocacy.org.

This initiative, organized by the UK-based Save Chechnya Campaign (http://www.savechechnya.org/), will hold events in several cities in Europe and Asia on or around February 23, 2006, to raise awareness about the 1944 deportations and the ongoing crisis in Chechnya. To find out about events near you or to have events listed, go to www.worldchechnyaday.org/.

On February 23, 1944, then entire population of the then Checheno-Ingush republic, almost half a million people, were ordered out of their homes and put on a grueling and in many cases lethal journey in cattle cars to Central Asia by Stalin's secret police, the NKVD. Many were killed on the spot for being too old or weak to move and tens of thousands are documented not to have survived the weeks on the trains or the first months in exile. In addition to Chechens and Ingush, 11 other ethnic minorities, among them Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans and Koreans were deported from their homelands before or during World War II to prevent the emergence of fifth columns or to "punish traitor nations" for their alleged collaboration with the enemy. Not until 1956, after Stalin's death, were the deported peoples allowed to go home.

February 23 holds special significance for Chechens and Ingush. It is also an annual opportunity for CAN and its partners to draw attention to the persistent violence and human rights violations in the North Caucasus area. Below are invitations to events in the US and Europe.

New York, February 23, 2006:

A survivors’ account of the 1944 deportations of the Chechen and Ingush peoples – Diana Tsutieva reads from her grandmother Nura Chagaeva’s memoirs about the deportations, life in exile and the return home

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Harriman Institute Chechnya Speaker Series

Harriman Institute/Columbia University, Room 1219
420 West 118th Street
New York
2pm

Nura Chagaeva was born in Starye Atagi, Chechnya, in 1925. Her mother was from Poland and had moved to Chechnya before the October revolution when she had married a Chechen officer in the tsar’s army. Nura grew up in Starye Atagi and Grozny. As a young woman she survived the deportation of her entire nation that had been ordered by Stalin as German forces approached the Caucasus. Right before the deportation, Nura's older brother was killed in Leningrad in a battle as a Red Army soldier. During the month-long train ride to Kazakhstan, Nura's mother died from typhus. Nura started a family in exile and returned to Chechnya years later, where she built a career in education management. Several years ago, she started writing her memoirs at the urging of her family. Her health permitting, Mrs. Chagaeva will attend the reading and take questions from the audience.

The event is open to the public. Please RSVP to can@chechnyaadvocacy.org.

Berkeley, CA, February 24, 2006:

Chechnya’s Past and Present:
Historic legacies and contemporary developments in one of the world’s most troubled regions

A Chechnya Advocacy Network Event

Sponsored by Vista’s Global Studies Club and the American Friends Service Committee

Vista Community College, Room 1
2020 Milvia Street, Berkeley, CA
6:30pm

featuring:

Professor Michaela Pohl (Vassar College)

Musa Khasanov (Public Interest Law Initiative fellow and Grozny-based human rights lawyer)

Miki Pohl received her B.A. in Liberal Studies from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington (1989), and Ph.D. in modern Russian history from Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana (1999). In her research, professor Pohl has focused on the oral histories of ethnic groups that were deported to Central Asia by Stalin the 1940s, one of the gravest crimes of the 20th century. She is the author of a forthcoming book on the Virgin Lands campaign, a settlement drive that started under Nikita Khrushchev. In addition to her academic work with ethnic Chechens in Kazakhstan and Moscow, professor Pohl is a member of the Chechnya Advocacy Network and has been actively raising awareness about on-going human rights violations in Chechnya through publications and events.

Musa Khasanov was born and raised in Chechnya and has lived there through the wars of the last decade. He received his degree in law and a degree in economics from Chechen State University in Grozny, and has extensive training in conflict resolution. Mr. Khasanov is a coordinator of the North Caucasus Peacebuilding Network in Chechnya with the British-based Center for Peacemaking and Community Development. In this role Mr. Khasanov has organized a variety of activities for youth, such as seminars on conflict resolution, festivals, exchange programs, and other community strengthening events. Mr. Khasanov is also a member of the Chechen Bar Association in Grozny, where he works as a lawyer specializing in criminal and civil cases. He is currently a Public Interest Law Initiative fellow at Columbia University Law School and Human Rights Watch and plans to represent victims of human rights violations upon his return to Chechnya.

The event is open to the public.

Washington D.C., February 23, 2006:

Panel discussion about the 1944 deportations and the current spread of violence throughout the North Caucasus

Svante Cornell
Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University-SAIS

Kelly McEvers
Writer and contributor to National Public Radio and a founding editor of www.SixBillion.org

Satsita Muradova
former lawyer with the Russian human rights organization Memorial

with introductions by

Thomas O. Melia
Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House

Please RSVP by email to redd@freedomhouse.org or by telephone to Cassandra Redd at (202) 747-4000

Boston, February 25-26, 2006:

Comparative Occupations: Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine: Governing Zones of Emergency Workshop

Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University

The aim of this workshop is to examine different situations of colonial, semi-colonial or post-colonial domination in under and over-globalized conflicts in which one segment of the population, or sometimes the population as a whole, is devoid of political rights and the effective protection of citizenship, and is dominated (in its own eyes at least) by a foreign ruling apparatus in conditions of chronic disaster verging sometimes on human catastrophe. The point is also not to compare the 'solutions' proposed or imposed by various international agents but to include an investigation of the interventions of these agents as one aspect of the phenomena to be studied.

Other phenomena to be examined to include:

New modes and forms of governing power in situations in which the suspension of the law has become the rule and where the production of disastrous living conditions is not simply an incidental side-effects of a bloody conflict but central to the administration of the conflict by the governing power.

The emergence of 'zones of emergency', some of which may be formally under occupation and others not, where new forms of power are imposed on non-citizens

The large-scale mobilization of the occupiers' resources to obtain its own security

Sponsored by:

Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University

The Middle East Initiative, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

The Van Leer Jesusalem Institute

The Governance Initiative in the Middle East, Belfar Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Human Rights at Harvard

For more information, including a schedule of events and list of speakers, and to register for the event please go to www.fas.harvard.edu/~mideast/conference/comparative_occupations_overview.htm.

Brussels, February 22-23:

Documentary films and conference

February 22: Voices of Dissent, film by Carlo Nero and Vanessa Redgrave at the City Library in Leuven (Belgian premiere)
February 23: Three Comrades, a film by Masha Novikova at the Peace House in Ghent (Belgian premiere)
February 23: conference about the situation of Chechen refugees in Europe at the Free University of Brussels (ULB)

Organized by Actiegroep Tsjetsjenie, Groupe Tchetchenie, Integration Service Leuven, Circle for International Relations (students), Association of the Chechen Community Leuven, Association of the Chechen Community Ghent, Association of Chechens in Belgium, Free University Brussels and Pax Christi Flanders

For detailed information, please go to www.paxchristi.be (in Dutch) or contact Annemarie Gielen by email.