An organisation investigating Russian military crimes in Chechnya has been forced to suspend its Moscow operations after Russia rejected its application to re-register.
Egbert Wesselink, treasurer at the Russian Justice Initiative (SRJI), said: "We submitted the application as we do each year to re-register as an NGO and it was refused."
"We have thus had to suspend our activities in Russia," he added.
The organisation has to adhere to a new Russian law on NGOs which came into force in April 2006.
Under the law, representative offices of foreign NGOs are required to re-register with Russian authorities.
Wesselink said: "This will be a little more complicated, but we will not stop doing our work."
The SRJI was founded six years ago. Its lawyers and researchers investigate mass cases of detention, torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions in Chechnya.
It brings cases to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
In a case earlier this month, the court held Russia responsible for the disappearance of a father and son, and for the murder of a woman whose body was discovered in a mass grave in Chechnya.
Wesselink said the group plans to either appeal the decision or submit a new application.
The SRJI will continue to work out of its headquarters in the Netherlands.
Agencies
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