Tanya Lokshina, Human Rights Watch"s senior researcher in Moscow, has long been a thorn in the side of the Russian authorities. During the war in Chechnya, Lokshina documented and publicised the indiscriminate shelling, torture and disappearances by Russia"s forces and violations by insurgents. She has covered other atrocities in the Northern Caucasus, as well as, more recently, the crackdown on dissent in Moscow.

Last month, Lokshina planned human rights research in Dagestan, another province in the Northern Caucasus, before going on maternity leave.

But someone didn"t want her to continue her work. She started receiving intimidating text messages attempting to link her with Islamist insurgents. The authors claimed to be "nearby" and coming after her, and predicted that she would have an "uneasy "birth"." Whoever was texting had apparently been near enough to watch her in Moscow.

Rather than stop reporting on rights abuses in Russia, Human Rights Watch faced the threats head on with a news conference to highlight the deteriorating environment in which Lokshina and other human rights defenders or independent journalists work.

Street protests last year led to a government crackdown on civil society - creating an atmosphere of intimidation for those threatened, and of impunity for aggressors, said Human Rights Watch.

The threats stopped on the same day that Human Rights Watch reported them to the Russian police, prosecutors, officials in the federal government and the Federal Security Service. However, only a few days later, another employee of the office received a text, again threatening Lokshina and indirectly warning Human Rights Watch not to hold its press conference.

Stand with Tanya Lokshina and defend free expression.

A special thank you to Human Rights Watch for contributing to this action.

Send this letter calling for justice in Tanya Lokshina’s case, and an end to the harassment of all human rights defenders in Russia

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