MOSCOW -- Russia's Justice Ministry has placed the Mashr (Peace) human rights organization in the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia on its official register of organizations "operating as foreign agents."
The moved was announced on the ministry's website on December 8.
In November, police in Ingushetia searched the house of the rights group's chairman, Magomed Mutsolgov, confiscating computers and documents, saying they contained "secret data."
Mashr, established in April 2005 by the relatives of kidnapped or missing residents of Ingushetia, is one of the few nongovernmental organizations in Russia's North Caucasus that monitors human rights abuses in the volatile region.
A Russian law adopted in 2012 requires any nongovernmental organization that receives funding from abroad and engages in political activity to formally register as a "foreign agent."
