PRESS RELEASE: Anarchists kidnapped in Chechenia
A few days before Christmas, two members of the Polish Anarchist Federation (FA) were kidnapped in Chechenia, where they were with a convoy of humanitarian aid (food, medicines, clothes). These anarchists are Marek Kurzyniec - a veteran FA activist, and Krzysztof Galinski - one of the founders of the anarchist magazine Mac Pariadka ("Mother of Order"). With the two where 3 other persons, somehow related to the FA.
No one has yet claimed responsibillity for the kidnapping, so nobody (including the Chechen government) are sure who they are, or in what part of the country the hostages are kept. In similar cases, kidnappers have waited for many weeks before making any demands. The director of the Chechen center in Cracow, Ampukaiev, has stated that it is possible that the kidnappers were paid by Russian secret service and that the objective of this action was to prove the Chechnians can't be trusted.
Chances are that the Chechens will not hurt them because the two men became well known when they were organizing convoys of humanitarian aid to Chechenia during the war. Three convoys organized with the help of the Anarchist Federation were the only ones which reached the areas of fighting. All other convoys organized by the UN were stopped by the Russians and their cargo was sold on the black market. The Polish Anarchist Federation also organized demonstrations at Russian consulates in Poland, and gathered signatures for a petition to protest the imperialist policies of the Russian government.
We will post more information as soon as we know more.
The Polish Anarchist Federation can be contacted at gawlik@plearn.edu.pl
-On Gogol Boulevard News Service
* * * See the OGB webpage at http://flag.blackened.net/agony/nenw.html * * *
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