Human rights violated in Moscow over the row between Russia and Georgia

In Moscow law enforcement officers have begun detaining ethnic Georgians, Ludmilla Alexeeva, Head of the Moscow Helsinki Group told Radio Svoboda on 4 October.

For example, this morning a district police officer arrived at  the home in the district of South Medvedkovo of a Georgian family and told them that they would all be arrested. Ludmilla Alexeeva told the radio station “Echo of Moscow” that Georgian families have been living in that block of flats for the last 15 years, having fled the armed conflict in Abkhazia at the beginning of the 1990s.

She said that people were already being taken to police stations “on ethnic grounds”.

Ludmilla Alexeeva labelled such actions by the authorities a flagrant violation of human rights.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia is actively working in its line following the verbal directive from above “to act with maximum severity” in relation to Georgian organizations in Russia and to pay attention to every detail. Ordinary officers are approaching this task with enthusiasm, and there have already been several incidents with immigrants at the capital’s markets, Newsru reports.