Residents of Chechnya report power agents beat up girls in hijabs

A conflict of the youth of one of Chechen villages with local power agents broke put after three girls in hijabs were beaten up there, locals have reported, asserting that during the incident, power agents opened spontaneous fire into the air.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was informed by villagers that on May 28, in one of the villages of the Achkhoi-Martan District, three girls wearing hijabs (head scarves) were beaten by power agents in front of the local school. Young boys, their peers, tried to defend the girls, resulting in a scuffle. After that, dozens of young people in cars blocked the local police division, demanding to give out the participants of the incident, said a villager named Musa.

The villager has explained that the conflict was preceded by another incident in the same village, in the centre, where school graduates took their Unified State Examination (USE): on May 28, power agents, who were on duty at the centre, beat up a 16-year-old schoolboy. A message about the beating was sent by a boy's relative to the SMS-service of the "Caucasian Knot".

After the incidents, the republic's leadership, including the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, arrived in the village. Residents were told that the conflict at the USE centre was initiated by the boy himself, while the unrests in the village were organized by the secret services of Ukraine and the USA.

The events in the village may provoke youth riots in other Chechen towns and villages against the arbitrariness of the police, said the head of one of local NGOs.

The Chechnya Prosecutor's Office is examining the circumstances of the incident at the USE centre and subsequent events, said a source from the Office.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.