Mutsolgov tells OSCE about problems of Ingush population and NGOs

Magomed Mutsolgov, Ingush human rights activist, member of the Expert's Board of the Office of Russian Ombudsman and leader of the "Mashr" human rights organization, has returned from Poland, where he took part on October 5-10 in OSCE session on fulfilment of obligations related to human dimension in 2008.

Magomed Mutsolgov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent the details of the session and his participation therein.

Speaking at the working session on problems of refugees and humanitarian activities, Mr Mutsolgov dealt with the situation with forced migrants from the Prigorodny District.

"I said that for 16 years already 14,000 forced migrants from the Ingush villages of the Prigorodny District and from North Ossetia cannot get back to their houses, and that in 1992 70,000 persons were driven out of the Prigorodny District, 500 persons were killed and 175 disappeared. I've emphasized that the problems, once left unsettled, aggravated with time. Forces have appeared in recent years, which try to re-kindle the Ossetian-Ingush conflict. 23 Ingushes have been kidnapped and disappeared in the territory of North Ossetia within latest 3.5 years. These kidnappings are nationality-motivated," said the human rights activist.

At another meeting, one of the American human rights organizations held hearings on the topic "Restoration of status quo: realities of human rights activists in the OSCE region", where the situation was discussed with the pressure rendered on human rights organizations.

"I told them about prosecutions of human rights organizations of Ingushetia, Chechnya, Dagestan and Kabardino-Balkaria, and gave the example with the Chechen human rights activist Osman Boliev, who was planted a grenade, and against whom a criminal case was falsified. Later he was completely acquitted by the court. After the trial, Boliev filed applications to law enforcement bodies against those persons, who had planted the grenade on him. But after that, he was toughly persecuted and was forced to leave Chechnya," said the interlocutor of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Mr Mutsolgov also told about the kidnapping of the public figure Murad Muradov, head of the humanitarian organization "Save the Generation", which was engaged in providing prostheses to children-war invalids.

"As to Ingushetia, I told about the murder of Magomed Evloev, owner of the independent Internet resource 'Ingushetia.Ru', and about the prosecution of the human rights organization 'Chechen Committee of National Salvation', which keeps litigating with various state services for 3.5 years already. I told about numerous revisions held by bodies in relation to our 'Mashr' organization and about kidnapping on July 25, 2008, by power agents of our employee Zurab Tsechoev, who was  beaten and tortured for several hours by the kidnappers," said the human rights activist.