Public meetings may be banned on the sly

Killed rebels parents filed a notification to the head of administration of Nalchik on 26 December in which they informed the city administration about their intention to start a no time limit protest public meeting with the use of placards, signs, and other media for visual propaganda, in compliance with the law "On conducting of a public activity in compliance with the Federal Law 'On gatherings, public meetings, demonstrations, marches, and picketing,'" as Caucasian Knot's correspondent has learnt.

The notification also sets out in brief the picketers' demands: give out the bodies, dismiss chiefs of republican law enforcement and security agencies, and dismiss leaders of the Kabardino-Balkar Spiritual Board of Muslims.

The parents also prepared an address to Nalchik residents with a request to join them and support them.

The parents intend to picket not only Kabardino-Balkaria's prosecutor's office, but also the mosque which houses the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria, as they believe its leaders to be among those to blame for the tragedy.

Every day since 13 October, killed rebels parents have been gathering near Kabardino-Balkaria's prosecutor's office demanding that the bodies of their killed sons be given out for burial. With this request, they have applied to virtually all jurisdictions in the republic and country. All their numerous letters have been forwarded to Mr Sovrulin, chief of the investigation group of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, who has replied that the bodies may only be given out when the investigation is over which will decide which of those killed are terrorists and which are not.

The parents have not been satisfied with the answer. They believe that their sons had been terrorised for several years, while they just answered the terror. Therefore, the parents have decided to proceed from simple picketing to picketing in the form of a public meeting which they think a more resolute activity.

Meanwhile, at its meeting on 26 December the parliament of Kabardino-Balkaria considered a ban on public activities "in connection with the terrorist threat."

• Torture confirmed in Kabardino-Balkaria