Journalists' rights abused

Officers of the Shali District Division of Internal Affairs took away a recording of a public meeting that took place in Novye Atagi earlier today from journalists of the Vesti ("News") Chechnya programme. The public meeting was held not far from the bridge across the river Argun at about 10.00 am. Participants, about 20 in number, mostly female residents of Novye Atagi, Shali district, demanded that persons who had been abducted earlier should be released. In doing so, they blocked the road between Grozny and Novye Atagi.

The journalists from the Vesti Chechnya programme came to the scene and talked to participants. After that, accompanied by a local police inspector, they went to the Shali DDIA to learn about the destiny of four detained villagers. As a result, the journalists were able to meet one of the detained men. To the question of one of the journalists "why your waist is bandaged?" the detained man explained that his kidneys hurt. When the item was taped, police officers took the cassette and strongly recommended that the journalists should go home.

The reason for the public meeting was the abduction of 10 residents of Novye Atagi on the night of 14 September, according to participants, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society reports. Five of them, severely beaten, were released the next day. Another four are currently kept in the Shali DDIA where a charge of killing one officer of the DDIA has been brought against them. The whereabouts of another one from among the ten men abducted earlier, Islam Bakalov, b. 1987, have since remained unknown. Participants in the public meeting say that the Shali DDIA chief told Mr Bakalov's relatives that district police officers had nothing to do with his abduction and promised them to spare no effort to find him.

• 'Targeted clean-ups' in Novye Atagi

More about freedom of press:

• Human Rights Practices in Russia's North Caucasus - 2004