Authorities of Ingushetia try to close NGO "Mashr"

A notification on holding on October 16 a picket in memory of Anna Politkovskaya in Nazran (Ingushetia), which was violently dispersed by militia, was submitted to the city's administration by the "Mashr" Republic's Association of Relatives of Missing Persons on October 12. In his interview to the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot," Magomed Mutsolgov, head of the "Mashr," told about the pressure that is being exerted on the organization.

"After submitting the notification about the picket, instead of giving an answer, two days before the action, I was besieged from all directions," Mutsolgov explains. "They came to my home, to my parents and into our office. They even offered me money for my giving up the idea to hold an action in memory of Anna Politkovskaya," the Ingush human rights activist added.

"Authorities are now doing everything to close the "Mashr." Early this year, the Karabulak prosecutor's office examined the legality of the "Mashr" activities and found nothing illegal. I know for sure that the prosecutor's office, and especially the FSB, were not satisfied with the result of that revision, and they kept asking local prosecution workers: "Why haven't you found anything?"," Magomed Mutsolgov told.

We remind you that on October 16, militiamen and "people in private clothes" dispersed a picket in memory of Anna Politkovskaya in the Bazorkin Avenue in the centre of Nazran. Eight persons were detained: five collaborators of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial," organizer of the action Magomed Mutsolgov, ITAR-TASS correspondent Ruslan Maisigov, and two occasional passers-by. As a result of a blow on her face by a man "in private clothes" Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, a "Memorial" collaborator, was diagnosed an open nose fracture and a closed craniocerebral injury.