Russian human rights activists state pressure on them in Abkhazian border

Anastasia Denisova, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in the Krasnodar Territory, and journalist Yuri Ivaschenko were subjected to interrogation by Russian customs officers and frontier guards at their entrance to and departure from Abkhazia. All their personal belongings were carefully examined.

On August 20, 2009, Anastasia left for Abkhazia together with Yuri Ivaschenko. When she was passing passport control at the check point "Adler-Automobile", she noticed that her passport caused certain liveliness among the employees of the check point. Anastasia was brought to a confined room, where her things were examined.

In a week from then, on August 27, Anastasia and Yuri were leaving Abkhazia. At the check point frontier guards interrogated Anastasia, sometimes exerting pressure on her and using threats. Her luggage was examined.

An employee of the customs service offered her to fill in customs declarations, emphasizing that if at exit from Russia they were not interested in "printed editions" and "data carriers", it was necessary to declare them at the entrance. Anastasia and Yuri had to spend almost 7 hours in the territory of the check point. Anastasia has treated the incident as pressure on a human rights activist.