Russian human rights official receives threats

MOSCOW-- A pregnant Russian human rights researcher said Thursday she had received anonymous text messages threatening her life and that of her child, which she believes are linked to her work in the troubled North Caucasus region.

Tanya Lokshina, of Human Rights Watch, said she suspected that security officials were bugging her telephone and making the threats after she arranged a business trip to Dagestan, a mostly Muslim province of North Caucasus, last week. The unknown authors wrote she would go through "an uneasy 'birth'" and vowed to come after her in Moscow.

The Russian Interior Ministry said it had received a request from Russia's rights ombudsman to investigate Lokshina's claims. Lokshina said the messages contained information that would be impossible to know without security services involvement, such as her due date, her unregistered home address and her relatives' travel plans.

Lokshina is one of the leading experts on the North Caucasus, helping expose human rights abuses. She blamed the threats on the atmosphere created by new Kremlin restrictions.

(2012-10-05/theonline)