15:32, 12 February 2004

Volunteer for Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship detained in Ingushetia

A volunteer for the interregional NGO Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship, Alkhazur Batayev, was detained in the tent camp for Chechen refugees "Satsita" by officers of Ingushetia's Sunzhensky district police department on February 10. Representatives of the police department refuse to report on Batayev's whereabouts. But there is reliable information, obtained from unofficial sources at the department, that the detained man was there.

The volunteer's wife, Larisa Batayeva, believes her husband's detention is caused by the talk he had with Ella Pamfilova about the way how the head of the Achkhoy-Martan district administration tried to return his refugees.

This supposition is not ungrounded since, according to Larisa Batayeva, the administration head of Zakan-Yurt, Larisa's native village situated in the Achkhoy-Martan district of Chechnya, threatened her several days ago when she visited Zakan-Yurt. He said the Batayev family would have problems if they did not stop their "propagandistic activity".

Source: Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship