Participants of rally in Kizlyar state that militia applied violence

Several participants of the rally in Kizlyar, which was dispersed by militia on June 9, were traumatized; however, they were refused any official physical examination, as eyewitnesses of the events report.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Zagir Musaev, a native of Cherniayevka village, Kizlyar District, that on June 9 in the morning in Dagestan local residents blocked the Federal Highway "Rostov-Baku", demanding to hasten the search of their fellow countryman Ahmednabi Nazhmudinov, who disappeared back on May 30. Fourteen most active participants of the action were brought to the local ROVD (District Interior Division); 7 of them are still kept there.

According to eyewitnesses, at about 2:00 p.m. power agents in masks, who arrived to the venue, began shooting in the air from sub-machine guns and catching the participants. Both men and women were violently beaten with butts of sub-machine guns, feet, truncheons and zinc boxes where weapons are kept. A man got a slash wound of his arm by such box, and a woman had her bag, where she kept her passport, shot through by an automatic round.

Militia cars and ATCs (armoured troop carriers) could be seen near the venue. Several dozens of detainees were brought to the Kizlyar ROVD; some of them looked strongly beaten. However, ambulances refused to come to their relatives' calls: the first-aid service said that the calls should be made by militiamen.

Local law enforcement bodies were inaccessible for comments.

Seven persons addressed the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" with complaints against militiamen who had beaten them. As they said, both the city and district hospitals refused to issue respective certificates to them.

Svetlana Gannushkina, a member of the board at the President of the Russian Federation on promotion to development of civil society institutes and human rights has already sent an inquiry to the public prosecutor of Dagestan A. I. Nazarov, asking to hold a forensic-medical examination of the citizens who were traumatized during dispersal of the rally in Kizlyar.