Russian-Chechen Friendship Society

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Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) is a non-governmental organization that monitors situation with human rights in Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus. RFCFS produces daily press releases on serious human rights violations. The Society has its main office in Nizhny Novgorod, where it produces newspaper Rights Protection jointly with the Nizhnii Novgorod Human Rights Society. RFCFS received the 2004 Recognition Award by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.[1]

The director of the RCFS, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, was convicted in February 2006 for "inciting of ethnic hatred" by publishing an appeal written by Aslan Maskhadov who called for the international community to facilitate negotiations to stop the Chechen conflict. In another article, Akhmed Zakayev asked Russian voters not to reelect Vladimir Putin and alleged that the war was in only Putin's interests.[2] The Society was closed by Russian authorities in October 2006 [3] but it continues its work.

In January 2007, RCFS proposed to start a tribunal on war crimes and human rights abuses in Chechnya, based on historical precedents, such as the Nuremberg Trials, the International Court of Justice of the United Nations, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal.[4]

In September 2007 the United States boycotted an OSCE conference in Vienna on the victims of terrorism after RCFS was not allowed to participate. A U.S. representative referred to the group as "reputable" and lodged a formal protest over its exclusion.[5]