HRC "Memorial": power agents would not let rights defenders into blocked Vremenny

On September 26, representatives of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and Human Rights Watch (HRW) tried to visit the settlement of Vremenny to see what was happening there in terms of human rights, but the power agents at the checkpoint at the crossroads leading to Vremenny and the village of Gimry village refused to let rights defenders to move farther, says the HRC's release received today by the "Caucasian Knot".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 18, Vremenny was blocked by law enforcers and militaries. On September 19, they began inspecting household by household and check everybody living there; and at night on September 23, gunfire was heard for about three hours. As reported on September 24, by a woman from Vremenny, almost all the men were taken to the neighbouring village of Gimry under the pretext of identification; the school and kindergarten were closed; the movement in the settlement was restricted; and many locals' houses were searched.

Rights defenders say that the information received from locals needs verification; in any case, they express their concern about the methods of conducting the special operation in Vremenny. "Anyhow, the methods they use there cannot but arouse alarm," rights defenders say, emphasizing that they were unable to get not only to Vremenny, but also to Gimry, where at that time no special operation was conducted.

The HRC "Memorial" plans to send letters with a demand to pay close attention to the "cleansings" undertaken at Vremenny to Sergey Melikov, the Plenipotentiary Presidential Envoy to the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) and the head of Dagestan Ramazan Abdulatipov, says the release.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.