MHG expert for Northern Caucasus asks Medvedev for protection against power agents

Aslambek Apaev, Chairman of the Committee for Defence of Forced Migrants' Rights and an expert of the Moscow Helsinki Group for Northern Caucasus, has addressed the president-elect Dmitri Medvedev and heads of Russia's power agencies with an appeal to protect him and members of his organization from prosecution by power agents.

According to his version, recently Kheda Ozdoeva, former worker of the Committee for Defence of Forced Migrants' Rights, has undertaken a range of actions "aimed at disorganization of the work of the Committee for Defence of Forced Migrants' Rights and disruption of the initiative to set up the Association of Caucasian NGOs named 'Civil Initiative'."

"I have all grounds to believe that Ozdoeva's activities are coordinated and directed by 'interested persons' from among employees of power agencies, whose steadfast attention is practically constantly felt by the workers of our Committee," the human rights activist asserts.

He reported that employees of the Committee had repeatedly noticed multiple cars without license plates with unknown people inside who were monitoring the office and chasing the travels of its employees.

"The Committee that I head dealt mainly with the problems of forced migrants from the Prigorodny District of Northern Ossetia. Naturally, we also rendered every possible assistance to all other categories of citizens, including forced migrants from Chechnya," the human rights activist said.

According to Mr Apaev, in its work the Committee had repeatedly confronted open threats from representatives of different agencies and attempts of blackmail.