Yulia Melnichenko was detained at a picket in Vladikavkaz.

Mozdok resident Yulia Melnichenko held a picket outside the North Ossetian prosecutor's office demanding an end to the repression against her family. Security forces took her to the police station.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on September 11, Mozdok resident Yulia Melnichenko held a picket outside the Prosecutor General's Office in Moscow, after which she spent more than three hours in police custody. Melnichenko, who had previously unsuccessfully sought to open a case against her brother Rostislav for beating him in Mozdok by a security officer, faced threats and pressure from law enforcement officers. At the picket, she demanded an end to the repression. After a picket in Moscow, an FSB officer summoned Yulia Melnichenko for a meeting, informing her that no action would be taken on her complaints. The circumstances of the case of Melnichenko's brother being beaten by a security officer indicate serious violations, her lawyer confirmed.

Yulia Melnichenko held a solo picket today against the repression of her family. The picket took place outside the North Ossetian Prosecutor's Office. Melnichenko stood with a sign that read, "The prosecutor's office is obligated to protect citizens' rights, not violate them. Stop the repression."

She said she was protesting the actions against her family—"beatings, the seizure of a land plot without trial or investigation, despite the fact that such seizure is only possible by court order, and the fabrication of various cases against us, both administrative and criminal," she told the "Caucasian Knot."

Fifteen minutes later, a security guard from the prosecutor's office came out, took a photo of the sign, asked my name, and after I told him my name was Yulia Vitalievna Melnichenko, he said he had called the police to take me away from the prosecutor's office building. Five armed Rosgvardia officers eventually arrived and said they had been called by the Ossetian prosecutor's office. Then four more police officers arrived to escort me away from the prosecutor's office building. I asked if they were ashamed to detain me in such numbers, given that I am 155 cm tall, weigh 46 kilograms, and have not committed any illegal actions on my part. "They responded that they felt awkward, but they were obliged to respond to the demands of the Ossetian prosecutor's office," Melnichenko wrote in her message to the Caucasian Knot feedback bot.

According to her, she is currently being held at the Iristonsky District Police Department in Vladikavkaz.

The Caucasian Knot reported that Melnichenko believes that the violations of her family's rights by government officials are ethnically motivated - back in 2019, when the beating of Rostislav Melnichenko by a security officer was being investigated, they cited the family's Ukrainian origin. "The very first question the investigator asked me during interrogation was about nationality," Melnichenko explained.

She said that her brother had been beaten several more times, and that the Mozdok District Prosecutor was demanding that her aunt's land plot be confiscated. Melnichenko, who was allocated a life estate in 2021 for the construction of a house due to a lack of housing.