The article, which was published on Monday by the New Times magazine, is based on allegations made by former police officer Larisa Krepkova, who left the elite Zubr subdivision of the Russian Internal Ministry’s OMON security forces a year and a half ago due to illness. According to Krepkova, officers from the unit would travel to Moscow’s Yaroslavskoye Highway to recruit migrant workers, who were then brought to the Zubr base in the nearby region of Shchelkovo. There, they were forced to dig ditches, set up fences, and clean toilets without pay, even though Official invoices included tallies of the cost of labor.

Krepkova said that the workers, who she labeled as “slaves,” even wound up working in the dacha of Deputy Interior Minister Colonel General Mikhail Sukhodolsky. In addition to not being paid the workers were beaten and poorly treated in general. After Internal Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev undertook a survey of the base, the workers were assigned more specific tasks, she said.

The former officer explained that funding for labor was previously determined by the Zubr officers themselves, and that today the funds are specifically allocated by the Internal Ministry. As such, she was unaware if Zubr was continuing such practices today.

The New Times article adds that the Zubr OMON subdivision is under the direct jurisdiction of Internal Minister Nurgaliyev, and is commonly known as “the minister’s personal security.”

A spokesperson from the Internal Ministry said on Monday that they plan to sue the magazine for libel.

Monday’s article is the second in less than a month by the New Times to address problems with the OMON, which are notorious for their brutal suppression of activist rallies and other protests. On February 1, the magazine published an open letter from a number of former Moscow OMON to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, describing poor working conditions, mistreatment by their superiors, orders to break up opposition rallies, and rampant corruption.

The next day, members of the Moscow city OMON announced their decision to sue the New Times for libel. City Police Chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev later stated that an internal investigation found the charges to be false. Additionally, the agency sent invitations to a number of journalists and rights activists to join the OMON for Russia’s traditional Maslenitsa festival celebrations. The OMON said that the event was a chance to show that the agency had nothing to hide, but the online newspaper Gazeta.ru described the proceedings as obviously staged.

The New Times noted that in response to the February 1 article, it has received a record number of letters from police officers with similar experiences. Its editors said on Monday that while they have yet to receive notification of any lawsuits regarding the articles, they are prepared to defend them in court.

Monday’s article can be read in its entirety in Russian by clicking here.

The World Report 2010 by Human Rights Watch (HRW), released on Wednesday, details the results of the organization’s research on the conditions of civil rights around the world. Researchers concluded that 2009 marked a downturn in human rights on a global scale, but that the situation for Russian rights advocates in particular had become “unprecedentedly tragic.”

In addition to issues regarding the armed conflict over South Ossetia, government harassment of NGOs, migrant worker rights violations, health care concerns, and the failure of international efforts to address Russia’s rights situation, the report spent significant time discussing the slew of murders of Russian activists over the course of last year.

“The brazen murders of at least five civil rights activists and violence and harassment toward several others marked a severe deterioration in the human rights climate in Russia,” says the report.

Experts noted that, most often, the journalists and civil activists who were under the highest risk of violence worked on issues relating to the North Caucasus.

“2009 saw an increase in violence and threats against human rights defenders, civil activists, and independent journalists in Russia, particularly those working on the North Caucasus,” says the report. According to HRW, these developments contrasted sharply with the “positive rhetoric” of President Dmitri Medvedev.

“We don’t deny that the president’s rhetoric is positive,” said HRW expert Tatyana Lokshina in an interview with Gazeta.ru. “It’s easy and nice to listen to his statements, but they remain only on the level of rhetoric, even though he’s been in power for a sufficient length of time.”

According to Lokshina, the actions of the Russian authorities have hastened the deterioration of Russian civil society. That the murders of rights advocates largely go uninvestigated “serves as a distinctive source of inspiration for criminals, who understand that no consequences will follow” their actions.

The report also remarked upon the continued discrimination of Russia’s 4 to 9 million migrant workers, citing unsafe working conditions, unpaid wages and a lack of redress for such abuses. Additionally, “police frequently use document inspections to extort money from visible minorities, including migrant workers,” the majority of whom are from Central Asia and other countries of the former Soviet Union.

In its criticism of Russia over the consequences of the August 2008 military conflict with Georgia, HRW stated that 20,000 residents of “deliberately destroyed ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia” are still unable to return to their homes more than a year later. It also cited a September 2009 independent report funded by the European Union that found widespread violations of international law on the part of both Russia and Georgia.

The report concludes with a mention of the concern among residents of Sochi, the Black Sea city that will host the 2014 Winter Olympics, regarding environmental and property rights violations on the part of the government, which is struggling to complete the necessary infrastructure for the games.

The HRW report totals more than 600 pages, approximately ten of which are dedicated to Russia.

The full text of the Russian section of the report can be read by clicking here.