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Suspect Detained Over Attack on Migrants' Rights Activist

Muhammad Amin, head of the federation, opening a centre that provides advice on social and cultural affairs and migration law in 2012.

Police detained a woman on suspicion of taking part in an attack against Mais Kurbanov, one of the leaders of the Russian Migrants Federation, a police spokesman said Wednesday.

Kurbanov saw four people standing outside his apartment building in Moscow's Novokosino district when he was returning home at 1:55 a.m. Tuesday, said Muhammad Amin, head of the federation.

Kurbanov was shot in the shoulder with a traumatic pistol, but was able to see that the assailant was a woman, Amin said. He was hospitalized, but his life is not in danger.

Police later on Tuesday tracked down a 24-year-old woman from the Tambov region at her apartment in the Novokosino district.

She was detained in connection with the attack, before being released on the condition that she doesn't attempt to leave Moscow pending the outcome of the investigation, the police spokesman said, Interfax reported.

Those involved in the attack will be charged with hooliganism, he said, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

The attack on Kurbanov could have been connected with his work, Amin said.

Kurbanov "actively opposes nationalism, he has frequently spoken out against popularizing xenophobia in society, and against nationalist movements," Amin said.

Prior to the attack on Tuesday, Kurbanov has received numerous threats from radical nationalists in the Internet.

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