Sokiryanskaya: defenders of kidnapped residents of Ingushetia are pressed on

As stated by Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", the signatories of the petition in defence of the relatives of the perished Ingush human rights defender Maksharip Aushev are threatened by some unidentified persons. These relatives were kidnapped last December.

The petition of a group of St Petersburg residents with a demand to speed up the investigation of the kidnapping of Maksharip Aushev's relatives and to establish their whereabouts was sent in early March to heads of law-enforcement bodies of the city, Governor of St Petersburg Valentina Matvienko and President of the Russian Federation Dmitri Medvedev.

"The petition was signed by about one hundred and thirty persons. On April 13, a young woman from among them received a call to her home phone, and a man, who presented himself as an employee of a certain 'chief department' began asking whether she had really signed this petition about 'brothers-Ingushes', as he formulated. He asked if she knew at all what she had signed. The girl was highly scared. Besides, unidentified persons, who presented themselves as GUVD (Chief Interior Department) employees, visited several shops, where workers had also signed the petition. They were asked similar questions with the obvious aim to press on them," Ms Sokiryanskaya said.

"It looks like the conversations were rather menacing, as signatories felt quite nervous after them. They were asked: Do you understand what you write? Have you any idea for whom you ask?" said the human rights defender. "The petitions and signatories' names were sent only to the addressees I mentioned; they were not placed in the Internet or anywhere else. Besides, no telephone numbers and places of work were given even in the petition as such. Thus, we can assume that the calls and strange visits were organized by the same 'state agents' who could have been involved in kidnapping of the four persons in St Petersburg."

Ms Sokiryanskaya asserts that the majority of signatories are the Moslems living in St Petersburg; however, "persons with questions" came not to them, but to Russians - city aboriginals.

"No official reaction followed from any of the top-ranking addressees; however, these visits and telephone calls may be considered as not quite adequate reactions. Now we'll undertake whether these visitors have anything in common with employees of power agencies," she said.

Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya does not exclude that the pressure attempts on signatories has to do with the address of Dzhanieva and Adzhieva - the suffered party in the Dobrievs' kidnapping case - have addressed the ECtHR complaining of inefficiency of the investigation on this case.