Moscow police detained a large number of migrant workers from Tajikistan who protested following what an advocate for migrants said was the severe beating of a Tajik man by security personnel at a shopping mall.
The president of the Migrants’ Federation in Russia, Karomat Sharipov, told media outlets in Russia that the incident took place at Moskva shopping mall in the southeastern Lyublino district on September 20.
Moscow police officials said on September 21 that more than 90 people were detained "after a conflict between migrants and a shopping mall's security personnel."
Sharipov said that about 250 people were detained.
A spokesman for the Tajik Migration Service's office in Moscow, Ahmad Ibrohimov, told RFE/RL on September 21 that the 27-year-old man whose beating prompted the protest was hospitalized.
A spokesman for the Tajik Embassy in Moscow, Sarvar Bahti, told RFE/RL that the hospitalized man's name is Novruz Zikirov and he may be released soon.
Bahti said that most of the people detained on September 20 have been released but that 14 remained in custody.
There are hundreds of thousands of labor migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus living and working in Russia.