24 October 2003, 12:16
Chechnya: attempt to detain human right activist
On October 19, the staff of the Kavkaz checkpoint situated on the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia attempted to arbitrarily detain head of the Chechen-Ingush Regional Department of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship Imran Ezhiev, who coordinates the human rights monitoring of the Moscow Helsinki Group in the region.
Ezhiev along with Khamzat Kuchiev, an official of the Society's Information Center, were moving from Ingushetia to Chechnya in an Oka car. When checking their documents, some members of the checkpoint staff were in the state of intoxication. Threatening with guns, they made Ezhiev go into the guard-room and said he was to be detained as the activity of human rights activists on the whole and of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship in particular is directed at discrediting the army, which "fulfills its complicated urgent tasks". People who were passing the checkpoint held a spontaneous meeting at the building of the guard-room demanding that Imran Ezhiev be released. Nearly 40 minutes later Ezhiev was set free and went to Chechnya.
Source: Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship
