MOSCOW, August 20. /ITAR-TASS/. The leader of Moscow’s community of ethnic Tajiks has dismissed the rumors a large rally by migrants is due soon.

“Some journalists are imaginative. They hurried to circulate rumors of preparations for a rally by 100,000 in Moscow. I merely said that such demonstrations were a possibility, if the position of Tajik migrants in the city is not brought in conformity with Russian legislation,” the leader of the all-Russia movement called Tajik Labour Migrants, Karomat Sharipov, said in the wake of rumors in the media and Internet blogs one hundred thousand Tajiks will take to the streets for a protest march in the autumn.

Tajik migrants are determined to press for the observance of their rights to employment in Russia by legal means, Sharipov said. In October their delegates will gather for a congress to address the Russian and Tajik authorities with petitions and also draw a common strategy of providing assistance to newcomers who arrive in Russia for work.

Sharipov explained that the organization he leads was getting daily complaints from fellow Tajiks arriving in Russia in search of employment. In some cases employers often take migrants’ passports away, force them to live in barracks in appalling sanitation conditions and delay wages or pay nothing at all.

“We are going to raise all these issues at the Congress of the Tajiks of the World, which is due in Moscow in the middle of October. We would like the Russian and Tajik leadership to turn an attentive ear to us. We shall demand our own government create jobs in our home country, too,” he said.

“If that does not happen, we shall be forced to file a request with the Moscow authorities for permission to hold demonstrations,” Sharipov said.

The public movement Tajik Labour Migrants emerged in Russia back in 2003. It supports Tajik migrants, helps them find jobs, publishes newspapers and campaigns for migrants’ rights in the mass media.