In Dagestan, NGOs ask Russian President to "pacify" power agents

Today an extraordinary session of the Union of NGOs "Homeland" was convoked to discuss actions in defence of constitutional rights of Dagestan citizens.

The reason to convoke it was in latest events in the republic, namely, a rapid growth of attempts on militiamen and kidnappings of young people by unknown armed persons. Often the kidnapped persons were later found assassinated and then backdated as militants.

The session was attended by Isalmagomed Nabiev, chairman of the independent trade union of entrepreneurs of Dagestan, Hadjimurad Kamalov, director of the publishing house LLC "Freedom of Speech", Shamil Magomedov, chairman of the independent trade union of Dagestan law enforcers, leaders of republic's NGOs, journalists of independent media and intellectuals.

For six hours, the audience discussed possible measures of civil reaction to the lawlessness practiced in the republic. In the opinion of the members of the "Homeland", recently, apart from militants, law enforcers are also killed by unknown persons, interested in destabilizing the situation and even in unleashing a war in the republic.

In the opinion of the audience, these criminals are kidnapping and killing the citizens included into the so-called "lists of Wahhabites".

Mr Nabiev said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that initiators of the present convocation of the "Homeland" session had long drawn public attention to the fact that quite a lot of citizens got into these lists wrongly, due to poor professionalism of district militiamen, whose work was assessed by the late Minister of Internal Affairs of Dagestan Adilgerei Magomedtagirov exclusively by the number of registered "Wahhabites".

During the session a decision was made to send a letter to President of Russia Dmitri Medvedev with a demand to find and punish the criminals. The letter will also say that many Dagestanians believe that the situation in the republic is strained by power agents from special agencies of the Russian Ministry of Defence and Interior Troops.

It is assumed that the letter will note that should the President of Russia fail to "pacify power agents", the NGO "Homeland" will reserve the right to hold protest actions, in particular with a demand of Russian President's resignation.