Daily updates from Memorial

- Chechnya: Unknown “Warriors” for Morality use Paintball Guns in the Center of Grozny

Since the beginning of June, unidentified men armed with paintball guns have been driving around the center of Grozny in cars with tinted windows and shooting at girls walking outside with uncovered heads.

Those driving the cars (usually a black VAZ-2112 model) reportedly dress black. While one films on a mobile phone, another shoots the paintballs at a girl. These incidents have been taking place most frequently in the central streets: Mir st., Putin Prospekt, R. Lyuksemburg st.

On 5 June, the unidentified people were driving in a black “Lada-Priora” (with the license plate number: T 431 AU 95- Region). Victims, according to their sources, have stated that the vehicle belongs to agents of the detective branch of the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs. On this day, a few women were “painted” around the “Dom Moda”. They were aiming at the neck and face. The men also shot a woman strolling with a young man in the center of the city. When he came to her defense, a fight started in which he was seriously injured.

Young women were also assualted on 6 June. Here is an account by the witnesses of one of the attacks:

“On 6 June, I was walking with a friend on Prospekt Putin. A black car with young men dress in black looking out of it drove up behind us. They had a complete unit. I have worn a large headscarf for a long time, but my friend was not wearing one. They threw a ball at my friend and shouted ‘Put on a headscarf’. One of them yelled at me: ‘And you, get out of here and stop hanging out with this kind’. We were shocked. It was only after the car drove off that I noticed that the skirt of my friend was covered in pink paint.”

None of the victimized young women is willing to make a complaint to anyone.

- Protest Dispersed in Kizlyar: New Details and Eyewitness Accounts

On 9 June, at around 10 in the morning in the Republic of Dagestan, a few dozen of women blocked the lanes of E-119 highway in the area of the “Chistye Prudy” café (at the turn to Kizlyar town). Although mostly women were participating in the actual barricade, some men were standing on the roadside.

According to witnesses, security forces arrived at 14:00 and began to fire their weapons into the air and haphazardly grab, kick, punch, and otherwise brutally beat men and women alike with the butt of their guns, nightsticks and gun cartridges. One man’s hand was cut by a bullet cartridge. One woman’s purse, which contained her passport, was shot through by a machine-gun. ATP’s and multiple police cars were loitering nearby. A few dozen of the arrested were dropped off at the Kizlyar ROVD. A few of these were seriously injured. Relatives called for ambulances to come to the ROVD, but the paramedics never left the station- they demanded that police agents call for the ambulance themselves.

Some of the arrested are still at the Kizlyar ROVD. At least two of them are in serious condition.

On 10 June, seven men appealed to the HRC Memorial with complaints about beatings inflicted upon them by police. They are being denied official medical examinations. The victims are also being refused medical care in the city and municipal hospitals.

A member of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, Svetlana Gannushkina, directed a request to the prosecutor of the Dagestan Republic, Nazarov A.I. to undertake a joint legal and medical evaluation for the citizens who were injured during the dispersal of the Kizlyar gathering.

On 10-11 June 2010, victims and eyewitnesses of the June 9th dispersal appealed to HRC Memorial. We provide portions of a few of their declarations, with a few grammatical corrections, below.

Ramazanov Suleiman Magomedovich:

“On 9 June, I was on the Moscow-Baku highway by the café “Chistye Prudy” at the Kizlyar city exit. There was a protest- 40-50 women blocked the road because their relatives- brothers, husbands, sons had been abducted starting in April. They began to block the highway at 10 in the morning and at 14:00 Moscow time, people in police uniforms and soldiers in camouflage and masks (as we were told by the militant group “Gerzel’”) started to fire their machine-guns into the air and formed a wall from two sides directed at the unarmed women and everyone who was there. The law enforcement agents and soldiers began haphazardly to grab the men and women and beat them with their rifle butts. I saw how soldiers in camouflaged uniforms beat Gaziev Izrail with the cartridge of a machine-gun, how multiple men threw him to the ground and started to kick him, and then how men in police uniforms came and started to beat him with the butts of their machine-guns. Close by, women were beat with nightsticks and wooden bats and kicked. Closer to me, Osmanov Kurban was also beaten. He was hit on the head with something and fell down bleeding from the head. They took him away in a police jeep in that condition. I saw how soldiers beat women with the butts of their machine guns. People in police uniforms and soldiers in masks simply threw a lot of men to the ground and began to kick them and beat them with their rifle butts. It was complete chaos . . .”

Gazimagomedov Ali Akhmedovich:

“I saw how soldiers in camouflaged uniforms beat Isaev Abdu-bari (Bagramyan) with the butt of a machine-gun and then throw him down to the ground and began to beat him. When he lost consciousness, soldiers grabbed him by the arms and dragged him into a police jeep. I also saw how men in police uniforms and masks beat Mumaev Kamil with a machine gun cartridge, how he was attacked and beaten by about 10 men, and then how others came and joined in and started to beat him with the butts of their rifles.”

Gazimagomedov Osman:

“I saw how one woman was fired at, I don’t know her last name, but the bullet went through her purse.”

Koiniev Imangazali Isakovich:

“I saw how people in civilian clothes began to beat the Imam of the mosque of Shamkhal village not very far from me with a simple wooden rod. They then began to beat him, along with other, with the butts of their machine guns.”

Magomedov Magdi Gasanovich:

“A mass of people in police uniforms ganged up on me and around 7 to 8 men began to kick me, threw me to the ground, and beat me with nightsticks- I don\t know who beat me specifically as I laid with my face to the ground. They yelled at us that they were going to kill us all right now. They beat minors and old men- women cried- they beat all who fell into their hands. “

Magomedov Khamzat:

“They came at us from two sides. Police officers and soldiers started haphazardly to grab all the men and women, beating them with their rifle butts. I saw how soliders started to beat a woman with bullet cartridge and when I started to intervene, they ganged up on me. At the same time, I saw how around 15 men in civilian clothes threw themselves at Mumaev Kamil because he tried to defend a woman. Then he covered his head with arms and ran off the road into a forested area, they resumed beating and kicking him with all their strength.”

Ramazanov Abdul-Nasyr:

“Soldiers in masks ganged up on me and tried to hit me with a gun cartridge, but I put out my hand and deflected the cartridge so that it wounded my hand. The cut is there which has been stitched up . . . I saw how one of the people in civilian clothing, who had a pistol attached to his belt, was going around waving this pistol, shooting into the air and at the ground and directing all kinds of obscenities at the protestors.”

All of the citizens who have appealed to HRC Memorial are asking the authorities to get to the bottom of this incident of 9 June 2010.

For further information: Memorial