Clean-up in Khutrakh village in Dagestan was punitive action, human rights activists assert

The residents of the village of Khutrakh of Tsuntin District of Dagestan have expressed their complaints to human rights activists against illegal actions of law enforcement and power agents who conducted a special operation in the village. This was announced by Svetlana Isaeva, Chair of the organization "Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights".

"We arrived there as individuals, without announcing our activities, since we were warned that we could be not allowed to enter this area. Having arrived in the village, we saw scared, beaten and exhausted people," Svetlana Isaeva said.

The special operation was conducted in the village of Khutrakh during the period of September 23-30; however, the members of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" and their colleagues from the organization "Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights" managed to get to this remote village, located in the Tsuntin District on the border with Georgia, on October 8 only. They conducted an interrogation of affected people and recorded their testimonies.

According to the HRC "Memorial", on September 23, a column of vehicles with power agents approached the village.

"About 30 vehicles entered the village. Power agents (more than a hundred people) in masks and camouflage left the vehicles and started to search the houses. They spoke in Russian and Avar. The power agents searched house after house regardless of whether owners were at home or not. When entering houses, they failed to introduce themselves, to present any documents or to explain the reason for their actions, they behaved very rudely," the HRC "Memorial" reports.

The people in masks broke locks on doors of the houses belonging to the villagers and entered the houses in groups. Thus, during one day, 3-4 groups entered a house. They took the money belonging to the villagers; pensioners lost their pensions. The people in masks took food and firewood prepared for the winter. They just opened jars with compote, drank it and put the jars with its content on the floor. This was told by the Chair of the organization "Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights" to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"People in masks broke into my house, they broke furniture. They beat me when I tried to stop them. When I asked why they did that, they answered: "We have the right to do it every day. We act on behalf of the President." They took away from the house even little flags with Arabic inscriptions," the pensioner Sakinat Kurbanova said.

According to the HRC "Memorial", on the very first day of clean-up the power agents began detaining and bringing away from the village its residents, both men and women.

Initially, the detainees were brought to the tent camp, settled near the village, where the filtration point was organized. Some detainees were left there; they were interrogated and tortured. Other detainees were brought to the district OVD (Interior Division) or the nearest Khuprinskaya checkpoint. Some detainees were brought further - to the village of Khebda. Detainees fail to know where exactly in the village they were interrogated, since they had plastic bags on their heads, the statement emphasized.

"Torture and beatings occurred in each of these places. However, not all detainees, who were brought there, were treated in that way: detained women were insulted, threatened, but not beaten or tortured. In some cases, men - such as detained teachers of the local school - were treated properly during interrogations. However, most of the detained men were ill-treated: they were beaten, tortured with electric current and simulation of military execution. The detained people were demanded to give information about militants, hidden weapons, and accusation of neighbours. Generally, the detainees were released on the same day, sometimes - on the next day," the human rights activists report.

Shamsudin Shamsudinov said that on September 23 three power agents in masks forced him out of his house and brought him to the tent camp. In the evening of that day power agents drag Shamsudin into closed body of a car "Ural", put a plastic bag over his head, fixed it around his neck with adhesive tape and began to torture him with electric current. According to Shamsudin, torture lasted from 2 to 6 p.m.

"After that, they took me out of the car, dug into the ground by my throat, gave a submachine-gun burst near me and threatened to kill me with a knife. They placed psychological pressure on me: "We have already buried a man and a woman; you'll be lying next to them." All this lasted during 20 minutes," says Shamsudinov and continues: "After that, they again forced me into the car "Ural", handcuffed and continued the interrogation. In the morning, they let me go."

"Magomed Isaev has been beaten so badly that he still goes on crutches; he was not allowed to leave the village, when he wanted to go for medical treatment. His face is covered with bruises; he's got broken legs, they are still covered by wounds. Another guy, who was afraid to introduce himself, has got his entire neck injured with cigarette burns. They just extinguished cigarettes on his neck and stuffed cigarette butts into his mouth. They burned hair on his chin with their cigarettes," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by the human rights activist Svetlana Isaeva.

According to her, the human rights activists intend to help people, do everything to protect them. They will appeal to the Human Rights Ombudsman in Dagestan, the Prosecutor's Offices of Dagestan and of the Russian Federation, the Investigatory Committee, demanding to investigate everything.

The "Caucasian Knot" has no official comments of the law enforcement agencies and the Human Rights Ombudsman in Dagestan yet.

The "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was reported that Rizvan Kurbanov, the head of the Commission on adaptation of militants, is currently on a business trip abroad.