Picket in defence of human rights in Ingushetia is on in Moscow

A picket against violations of human rights in Ingushetia has started today at 5:30 p.m. in Novopushkinskiy mini-park of Moscow. Some 20 persons take part in the action: activists of the Anti-War Club, Human Rights Centre "Memorial", "Feedback" Group, and representatives of the editorial board of the website "Ingushetia.Ru".

According to the anti-war activists, they express their concern with the growth of violence in Ingushetia, and protest against prosecution of independent mass media, opposition leaders, and arrest of participants of protest rallies on January 26 in Nazran, who were accused of organizing mass disorders.

"In the recent years, Ingushetia has become one of the hottest points in the map of Northern Caucasus. It is a real battlefield, where dozens of people perish and where a 'special antiterrorist operation' took away the life of Ruslan Amriev, who was six years old," Anna Karetnikova, coordinator of the Anti-War Club, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"In Ingushetia, journalists and human rights defenders are beaten and kidnapped from hotels. The Republic's leaders would not admit television and press in, trying 'to close' the country to the external world. The top officers and law enforcement bodies of the region are at a permanent and systemic war on the Ren-TV Channel and web portal "Ingushetia.Ru", the mass media, which try to bring truth fragments to Russian public on what happens in Ingushetia," Ms Karetnikova asserts.