29 July 2005, 17:09
Brute force against refugees
The dwellers of several temporary accommodation points in Grozny's Staropromyslovskii district obstructed a road to the centre of the Chechen capital in the morning on 29 July.
The public meeting that largely consisted of women demanded that a young man abducted from a temporary accommodation point on the night of 28 July by armed people in camouflage uniforms and masks should be immediately released, Caucasian Knot's correspondent says.
"At about 9.00 pm last night armed people in masks coming in three UAZ vehicles and a Zhiguli car without registration number plates broke into a room on the second floor of a temporary accommodation point in Koltsov St in the Staropromyslovskii district and brought away Ilias Azimov, b. 1985, without indicating the destination," a public meeting participant said. "In doing so, the attackers cruelly beaten the young man's mother and several more people who tried to interfere. They behaved extremely rudely and aggressively. They did not let anyone go out of their rooms and threatened shooting anyone who would interfere."
"In the morning, the refugees living in the four temporary accommodation points in Koltsov St, mostly women and children, blocked the road near the Zagriazhskii community. Our main demand was finding and returning the abducted man. In a while, police officers came here who tried to disperse us. They were shooting randomly in the air and under the meeting's feet, beat one young man with the butts of their weapons, and pushed people with vehicles. Luckily, no one suffered really seriously, but some women lost consciousness and were taken to hospital," the interlocutor said.
According to her, the people were driven to the roadside. Next, the chief of the Staropromyslovskii District Division of Internal Affairs and representatives of the military commandant's office came there. "They promised us to look into the matter, but the people do not believe. Many refugees assume to go back to Ingushetia in protest, like Borozdinovskaia residents did going to Dagestan. People are simply tired of all this abuse and hopelessness," the woman added.
"We are told Azimov is charged with murder, but that's all rot and no one believes this," she continued. "This was a very decent young man and besides, he had a leg disease. Yesterday we had information he was kept in the Staropromyslovskii District Division of Internal Affairs, and now they say Ilias has been brought away to the Shatoi district where he comes from. We hope they will let him go. If this does not happen, our protest action will continue."
The people who abducted Ilias Azimov are officers of the Staropromyslovskii DDIA. This is what the abducted man's relatives told a correspondent of the Information Centre of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. They say they were able to track down the abductors.
The relatives say the law enforcement agents delivered Ilias Azimov to the Staropromyslovskii DDIA premises. Later the same day, Ilias's parents addressed the police station with a demand of releasing Azimov who has a serious disease. However, the police refused to talk to them advising that they should apply to the DDIA on the next day. However, when this morning the man's relatives applied to the police, they were told detainee Ilias Azimov had been moved to the Itum-Kali district.
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