Tajikistan’s Embassy in Moscow has sent a note to the Russian Foreign Ministry asking to thoroughly investigate the incident that took place at one of shopping mall in Moscow last month. According to the Embassy press center, the note was sent to the Russian Foreign ministry on September 29, nine days after the incident occurred. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry has not yet replied to it.
Recall, a 27-year-old resident of the Baljuvon district in Khatlon province, Navrouz Zikirov, was severely beaten by security personnel at the “Moskva” (Moscow) shopping mall located in Moscow’s Lyublino district in the evening of September 20.
Navrouz Zikirov was taken to Hospital # 68 and doctors diagnosed him with brain concussion.
A source at the Tajik Embassy in Moscow says Navrouz Zikirov is now in a good health. “He went to Tajikistan to see his parents and family,” the source added.
Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on September 21 that about 150 migrants have gathered outside the shopping mall to deal with the security personnel, but police managed to prevent the mass brawl and most of those who came to the shopping mall dispersed. However, about 50 people were detained, according to Interfax.
Karomat Sharipov, the head of the Federation of CIS Migrants, told Interfax that about 250 people had been detained near the “Moskva” shopping mall. Among them there were relatives of Tajik migrant beaten by the guards, Sharipov said.
“He was severely beaten right in the security personnel’s room,” Sharipov told Komsomolskaya Pravda in an interview. “The security personnel thought that he is dead. They wrapped him up in a cloth and put in a garbage bin near one of the shopping mall’s exits, where people found him and called an ambulance.”
Meanwhile, some Russian media outlets say that the mall employees, mostly nationals of Tajikistan, just gathered to protest over the beating and were not going to beat security personnel. Many of them were detained and taken to the Lyublino police department
Russian human rights activists say they have revealed violations of rights of Tajik nationals being held in the Lyublino police department.
Council for Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of Russia has applied to the Russian Interior Ministry with solicitation to investigate Tajik national’s beating and detention of Tajik nationals that followed the incident.
Denis Nabiullin, the member of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission (PMC), told Itar Tass that human rights activists had revealed violations of rights of the Tajik nationals being held in the Lyublino police department.
“The police department is overcrowded. Twenty-two people have been held there for a day but they have not yet been provided with meals. Besides, twenty other Tajik nationals are just in the department hall because the cells are overcrowded,” Nabiullin said.
According to him, some of the detainees say that they have nothing to do with the incident that took place at the shopping hall. “They say they were detained at the Sadovod market where they work as vendors. They say they were detained because they have Tajik passports,” the human rights activist noted.
