Rights violations of defenders in Nalchik attack case stated at press conference of Public Chamber's Working Group

Today, the press centre of the RIA "Novosti" in Moscow hosted a press conference of the Working Group of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation for the Caucasus on the topic: "From Nalchik to Vladikavkaz: Brink Between Justice and Reality". Maxim Shevchenko, the head of the Working Group, treated the trial on the case of the attack on power agencies of Nalchik in 2005 as "unprecedented"; while the journalist Nadezhda Kevorkova spoke about human rights violations at the SIZO (pre-trial prison), where the figurants in this case are kept.

The press conference was attended by Orkhan Djemal, an observer of the TV channels "Dozhd" (Rain) and "Russia Today", and Nadezhda Kevorkova, an observer of the "Russia Today"; while the debates were moderated by journalist Maksim Shevchenko, head of the Working Group of the Public Chamber.

Maksim Shevchenko expressed his concern about the fate of Russian citizens, whose investigation of the rebellion on October 13, 2005, in Nalchik lasts for six years already.

Then, Orkhan Djemal, a TV observer, shared his information about the situation in Kabardino-Balkaria and North Ossetia. He also briefed journalists on the story that preceded the attack on Nalchik in 2005. This attack, according to many local experts and human rights activists, was in much provoked by violations of rights of Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria by local militia.

Mr Djemal drew attention of the audience to the fact that 13 episodes of the rebellion case were united into one criminal case not accidentally. In his opinion, this was done in order to link the episodes with all the detainees under this case, since only four out of 59 defendants were detained as direct participants of the attack.

Nadezhda Kevorkova, observer of the TV channel "Russia Today", told the audience about the conditions, in which the defendants have been held for six years. She quoted their complaints, in which the detainees assert that torture continues at the SIZO, and noted that human rights violations are still a common thing there.