Chechen women tell Spanish paper about "hunting" for women without headscarves

Lately, the capital of Chechnya saw almost two dozens attacks made from paintball rifles on girls without headscarves. One of the victims of these attacks lost her eye as a result of a paintball shot. According to human rights activists, local militiamen may be involved in the attacks.

According to eyewitnesses, in the last ten days 17 girls were attacked in Grozny, the Spanish newspaper "El Pais" reports.

According to the Spanish paper, the authorities forbade local mass media to cover these events. For example, the IA "Grozny-Inform" did not even mention attacks on women, but gave lots of details about the seminar held in Grozny: "Women's rights; ecology as part of rights", where a lot was spoken in particular about stronger role of women in Northern Caucasus and their active involvement into the civil society.

Ilyas Matsiev, head of the press service of Grozny Mayoralty, was surprised at the question about the incidents in the capital: "I hear about it for the first time," said the official as quoted by the GZT.RU.

The Ombudsman of Chechnya Nurdi Nukhazhiev said, in his turn, that the attacks were "tricks of radical youngsters." As he said, the authorities of Chechnya are successfully struggling for revival of moral traditions, while such incidents could hardly give such effect, the "Gazeta.Ru" writes.

However, Mr Nukhazhiev has noted that Chechen women and girls should not appear in streets without headscarves. "It is a custom among Chechens that girls and women should wear headscarves, and men - initially skull-caps and then - sheepskin hats. Therefore, we should respect our traditions. This is my personal opinion," said the Ombudsman and added that he was ready to defend the rights of suffered girls.

In recent years in Chechnya girls-students of local higher schools cannot appear at lessons with uncovered heads. Women-employees of state institutions are also obliged to wear headscarves at work and follow a strict dress code. Violations may result in dismissal. The initiator of these innovations was President of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov personally.

Natalia Estemirova, a human rights defender, who was assassinated last year, told back in 2006 the "Deutsche Welle" that similar initiatives had already been applied in the republic, for example, women were not let to the parliament without headscarves. "When males are afraid to undertake some serious endeavour, they always remember about women's headscarves," Ms Estemirova then said. "It often happens after 1991... It's difficult to force a power agent to release a kidnapped man, but it's easy to force a dependent woman to put on a headscarf."