Chechen journalist detained

According to Russian sources, Taisa Isayeva, who works for Chechen-Press news agency based in Georgia, was detained at the border because she was carrying a video camera and a portable computer.

Amnesty International is asking the Russian authorities to make public the whereabouts and well-being of Taisa Isayeva, and to reveal whether she has yet been charged with any recognisably criminal offence.

The organisation is extremely concerned that Taisa Isayeva might have been taken to a secret 'filtration camp' where she would be held incommunicado and would be at risk of torture and ill-treatment. Amnesty International has collected numerous testimonies from survivors of 'filtration camps' and families of detainees, which confirm that hundreds of men, Women's rights's rightss rights's rights's rights's rights and Children's rights are routinely subjected to torture and ill-treatment, including rape, while kept in secret detention facilities by the Russian forces.

Independent journalists and human rights monitors are still not officially allowed into Chechnya, and any recording devices or communication equipment, such as computers, tape recorders and video cameras, are confiscated at the border with Chechnya.

'This latest incident again calls into question the Russian authorities' commitment to freedom of expression', Amnesty International said today.

Copies of the Amnesty International report on Chechnya, For the Motherland, seized last week at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport as they were being brought into the country, have still not been released by Russian customs officials.