Chechen officials have released three Russian human rights activists after detaining them for 15 hours, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.
Aleksandr Cherkasov of the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center told RFE/RL that the activists had intended to collect information about missing people in Chechnya and that a resident of the town of Shali had specific information about a missing person.
Activists Dmitry Yegoshin of the nongovernmental organization Man and Law from the town of Yoshkar-Ola; Roman Veretennikov of the group Mothers to Protect the Detained, Accused, and Convicted in Krasnodar; and Vladislav Sadykov of the Bashkortostan-based Committee against Torture, were detained on February 7 in Shali.
Cherkasov said neither the reason for their detention nor their release were documented or explained.