North Caucasus Police Violently Break Up Rally for Slain Russian Reporter

[DeepModem Mom]

Editor&Publisher: Police in North Caucasus Break Up Rally for Slain Russian Reporter
Published: October 16, 2006

NALCHIK, Russia -- Police in the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia on Monday arrested rights activists and violently broke up a rally in memory of murdered reporter Anna Politkovskaya, who investigated torture in neighboring Chechnya, a rights activist said.

Security forces cordoned off a site in the center of Ingushetia's main city Nazran as about 40 rights activists and others tried to gather, Natasha Estemirova, a Chechnya-based worker with the human rights group Memorial, said by telephone. Police tore photographs of Politkovskaya from demonstrators' hands and beat at least one person.

At least three people were detained, including the head of the Ingush Red Cross, she said.

Ingush Interior Ministry spokesman Nazir Yevloyev confirmed that some rally participants had been arrested but declined further comment.

In Chechnya's capital Grozny, meanwhile, about 50 human rights groups, journalists and others, including some whom Politkovskaya had written about, rallied, carrying signs and photographs of the 48-year-old reporter who was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building Saturday....

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