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Human rights activists and journalists attacked on border with Chechnya

The presidential Human Rights Council is extremely concerned with the incident and is calling for a quick, thorough and objective investigation into its circumstances

MOSCOW, March 9 /TASS/. Six journalists and law enforcers have been hurt in an attack near Ingushetia’s administrative border with Chechnya, a law enforcement source in Ingushetia, a republic in Russia’s North Caucasus, told TASS on Wednesday.

A group of journalists and human rights activists was heading for Chechnya, also in the North Caucasus, in a Ford car. They were attacked near the Ordzhonikidzovskaya settlement on the Kavkaz federal highway.

"There were about 20 attackers. They took away the mobile phones from [the journalists and human rights activists], set their Ford car on fire and drove away," the source said. According to preliminary reports, six journalists and human rights activists were injured in the burning car.

The source said that an investigation team was working at the scene.

Igor Kalyapin, a member of the Russian president’s Council for Development of Civil Society and Human Rights and the head of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, also confirmed that a group of journalists and human rights activists had been attacked on the administrative border between Ingushetia and Chechnya.

"An unidentified group of persons, who were riding in three cars, attacked human rights activists from the Free Mobile Group and journalists on Ingushetia’s border with Chechnya at around 19:15. The assaulters beat them up and took away the mobile phones from two people. They also crashed the activists’ car and set it on fire," the Human Rights Council website quoted Kalyapin as saying.

The presidential Human Rights Council is extremely concerned with the incident and is calling for a quick, thorough and objective investigation into its circumstances, the website said.