'Fighting Wahhabism'

Several days ago, a Chechen police officer beat a 14-year-old girl for wearing a headscarf.

"This took place in the district police department in Grozny's Zavodskoi district on 9 June, Taisa Isayev, chief of the Information Centre of the Council of Chechen Nongovernmental Organisations, told Caucasian Knot. The girl's relatives (she is resident in Prigorodnoye, Grozny district) asked not to mention their names for fear of repressions and harassment on the part of law enforcement and security agencies."

"The girl's mother says she came to the Zavodskoi District Division of Internal Affairs together with her daughter to get a passport for the girl as she had grown 14 a while before that. The daughter came in, while her mother waited for her outside. In a while, the woman heard her daughter cry. She came in running and saw one police officer cruelly beat her daughter with a truncheon calling her "Wahhabi" and verbally abusing her. Only the girl's mother was able to stop this 'arm of the law,'" she says.

The girl's condition is grave, according to Taisa Isayev's information. Her relatives know the name of the police officer, but they are not going to take any steps for fear of possible negative implications of such steps.

• Justice unwelcome