MOSCOW — A pregnant Russian human rights researcher says she has 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.
Tanya
Lokshina of Human Rights Watch said Thursday she suspected that
security officials were bugging her telephone and making the threats.
The
Russian Interior Ministry said it had received a request from Russia’s
rights ombudsman to investigate Lokshina’s claims and would conduct the
probe.
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 Russia’s volatile North Caucasus region, helping expose human rights abuses there.
