EU must pressure ex-Soviet region on rights: Amnesty

(MOSCOW) - The European Union is letting Russia and other ex-Soviet states off the hook on human rights for the region's energy and for political goals, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

As Amnesty released a global report that included a catalogue of abuses across the former Soviet Union, its regional director, Nicola Duckworth, said outside powers like the EU must not relegate human rights to "the back seat" when dealing with the region.

In the EU's dealings with Central Asian states and Russia, "although human rights are often on the agenda they seem to be the issue that can be traded off in order to reach the more important point" -- notably energy, said Duckworth.

"You can't separate human rights out from the other sorts of problems that exist," she added.

Duckworth slammed Russia not only for domestic rights abuses but for shielding from criticism other abusers like Uzbekistan, where a crackdown took place in the city of Andijan in 2005.

"Powerful states like Russia and China protect their allies from accountability.

"It's been extremely difficult to try to get some sort of accountability from Uzbekistan... and it's even more difficult when powerful states like Russia protect their allies in that region," she said.

Amnesty's annual report describes the continued failure to improve the legal system in Russia despite promises by President Dmitry Medvedev to do so when he took office in May last year.

It also details human rights abuses such as torture and disappearances, with war-torn Chechnya singled out for criticism despite the lifting of a counter-terrorism regime there.

"Especially in Chechnya last year we saw human rights violations we either never heard about before or not in such quantity," said researcher Friederike Behr.

"We heard about collective punishments, in which the homes of sons and daughters of suspected rebels are burnt down and fire services do nothing."

Chechnya's local authorities had refused to meet Amnesty's researchers on the grounds that there were no problems with human rights in the region, she added.