"Dagestan Mothers": we are prosecuted and intimidated

Gulnara Rustamova, Chair of the organization "Dagestan Mothers for Human Rights", has addressed the Moscow Helsinki Group and Human Rights Centre "Memorial" with a complaint against "arbitrariness and impunity" of the power agencies of the Republic.

According to Ms Rustamova's statement, during the work of their organization kidnappings of young men in Dagestan went considerably down. Nevertheless, after a meeting of one of recently found young men - D. Kamaludinov - with journalists, organized by the "Dagestan Mothers", threats started to arrive to the organizers - G. Rustamova, D. Kamaludinova and S. Omarova. In particular, they demanded from Rustamova to stop her human rights activities.

Gulnara Rustamova asserts that "the object of attacks" is now her younger brother Vadim Butdaev whom the law enforcement bodies "cannot let alone for a long time".

According to the statement of the Chair of the organization "Dagestan Mothers for Human Rights", Dagestan is controlled by an organized criminal grouping headed by high-ranking militia officials. "The arbitrariness and impunity of power agencies are forcing young men to go to the forest and take weapons in hand," the human rights activist has added.