Gikalo protesters move to the center of GroznyTimur Aliyev, North Caucasus, June 30 – The protest rally started by the residents of the Gikalo village on June 27 continued today in front of the Chechen government building in Grozny. The 200 to 300 meeting participants, mostly women, demanded that the authorities put an end to the ongoing detainment of people in Chechnya.
“Just after the referendum there seemed to be a slight decrease in the number of mop-up operations,” says Markha Hajimuradova from Starye Atagi, a protest participant. “But now people are disappearing on a daily basis, and peaceful citizens get killed.”
The protesters attempted to put up barricades within Grozny, and blocked the Staropromyslovskoye Street just as they had blocked a road near Gikalo the previous day. Later, under police pressure and yielding to the pleas of motorists, the protesters moved from the road to the sidewalk in front of the building of the Chechen administration.
The participants said the protest rally was triggered by murders and disappearances in the republic over the past week.
In the village of Starye Atagi unidentified assailants shot four people to death and injured eight others on June 29, including Vakha Gadayev, the head of the local administration. And some time late June 27 or early the next morning, in the village of Varandy in the Shatoysky district, Sayd-Ibragim, the son of Akhmad Shamayev, the Mufti of Chechnya, was killed in a gunfight. Several local residents were arrested in the course of the mop-up operation that followed this event. There is still no news about the six inhabitants of the village of Gikalo who were detained in June. (D/W,T) |
