9 March 2005
DAILY REVIEW FROM TATARSTAN
Tatneft Admits Bookkeeping Mistakes
Tatneft issued an official statement saying that mistakes have been found in its published audited consolidated financial reporting under the U.S. standards of bookkeeping (US GAAP) for 2001-2002, intertat.ru and �Kommersant-Volga-Urals� reported on 7 and 9 March, respectively. The mistakes resulted in overestimating net profit under the US GAA requirements, as well as company expenses by 2.3 billion rubles ($83.1 million) in 2002, by 0.2 billion rubles in 2001 and by some 0.7 billion rubles before 2001. In the first six months of 2003, net profit under US GAAP was underestimated by 2 billion rubles. The company said it will correct reports for 2001 and 2002 as well as that for 2003 which still has not been confirmed by the U.S. Securities Commission. �Kommersant-Volga-Urals� cited experts as saying that the situation could lead to Tatneft's exclusion from listing on the New York Stock Exchange.
Conference Devoted To Soltangaliev In Istanbul
A conference devoted to Tatar political leader Mirseyet Soltangaliev was held in Istanbul, Tatar-inform reported on 8 March. Istanbul University scholar Bilge Halit Hakinc, who IN 2004 published a book titled �Soltangaliev and national communism,� presented the main report at the forum. The conference was organized by the Istanbul Society for Culture and Help of Crimean Tatars. An ideologist of national state building, Soltangaliev was repressed in 1923 under the �Soltangaliev�s case� initiated by Josef Stalin and was shot in 1940. Soltangaliev�s ideas regarding �Muslim communism� created a basis for ideologies of struggle for national liberation in countries of the third world.
Compiled by Gulnara Khasanova
DAILY REVIEW FROM BASHKORTOSTAN
Activists Say Police Enountered No Violence In Blagoveschensk
Human rights activists are rejecting the official version of the police's role in the Blagoveschensk incident. Vladislav Sadykov, regional coordinator of the public organization "Committee against torture" in Nizhnii Novgorod, told Regnum on 7 March (see "RFE/RL Tatar-Bashkir Report," 21 January 2005) that it is far from true that police came to the scene in response to an attack on local policemen. According to the Committee activists, who conducted a public investigation into the affair, local policemen were not beaten on 8 December 2004, as was reported. The activists cited an appeal by local residents Svetlana Kataeva and Olga Geroeva, who complained of beatings by the police. Street patrol officers Pavel Goltyaev and Evgenii Chistyakov have testified that senior officers pressured them to report that locals had beaten them.
Compiled by Iskender Nurmi