A respected Russian rights group says one of its activists has been beaten unconscious by a law enforcement officer.
Oleg Orlov, the head of the Memorial rights group, says that altercation occurred in southern Moscow on Tuesday.
He said the activist, Bakhrom Khamroyev, had arrived at the apartment of a family from the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan to check that rights were being upheld during a search of the home by 20 undercover agents.
Police could not be reached for comment.
Orlov said a plainclothes officer accused Khamroyev of impeding their work and started beating him.
Rights activists in Russia are often depicted as a foreign-sponsored evil, and attacks frequently go unpunished.
