Photo: Nicholas Danilov, MosNews.com
Bashkiria's
Interior Minister is set to be called to Moscow for a briefing on the
internal republic after a demonstration in front of Moscow's Interior
Ministry headquarters Thursday called for action against police brutality.
Russian Interior Ministry head Rashid Nurgaliyev was behind the decision
to
call in Bashkiria Interior Minister Rafail Divayev. The news was announced
by Major-general Nikolai Mamontov at a press conference he called in
response to the demonstration.
Divayev is expected to give a detailed briefing on the situation within
his
ministry in the past six months.
The protest was organized by the liberal Yabloko faction together with
other
activists in an attempt to publicize what they call police "lawlessness"
in
the southern Russian republic, Yabloko press secretary Sergei Kazakov
told
MosNews.
Women at the demonstration said their children had been killed by police
right in front of them, Kazakov said. There have been widespread accusations
of rampant beatings, torture, and other abuses by Bashkiria's police.
After the demonstration, the parents whose children they said they saw
killed were met by Mamontov personally, and he reportedly promised to
investigate.
See also:
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/07/15/bashkiria.shtml
Human Rights
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