The attack on journalists and human rights activists in Ingushetia may be driven by the people who destroyed the office of the Committee Against Torture (CAT) in Grozny in the summer of 2015. This opinion was expressed to Interfax by the head of the “Committee for the Prevention of Torture” (an organization created on the basis of the checkpoint) Igor Kalyapin.

“There is no doubt that these attacks [in Ingushetia] were carried out by people who came from Chechnya. They are very similar to the attacks on our office in Grozny in December 2014 and July 2015. The handwriting is similar,” said Kalyapin.

On the evening of March 9, it became known that journalists from Moscow, Norway and Sweden, as well as employees of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, were beaten on the way to Chechnya . As a result of the attack, in particular, correspondents from Mediazona and The New Times were injured. According to Mediazona journalist Yegor Skovoroda, journalists and human rights activists were beaten by masked people with the words “You are protecting terrorists.”

Later on March 9, it became known that armed people attacked the headquarters of human rights activists of the Joint Mobile Group of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) in the Ingush city of Karabulak.

Kalyapin said that the injured journalists and human rights activists did not receive serious injuries. He clarified that the Norwegian journalist Eystein Vindstad suffered the most.

Ministry of Internal Affairs is investigating the attack on journalists and human rights activists The Ingushetian . As Mediazona reported with reference to Skovoroda, who was questioned as a victim, the police opened a criminal case under Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy or by an organized group) and Article 167 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ( intentional destruction of property).

Human rights activists saw a connection between the attacks on journalists and the office in Grozny