Beyond the barbed wire confines of the Chernokozovo detention centre, a crowd of screaming women hurled themselves beneath the wheels of the military bus carrying journalists back from a propaganda tour of the camp.
Dozens lay on the dusty road. Others, waving white flags, gripped the windscreen wipers of the moving vehicle, snapping them off. The windscreen cracked beneath the pressure of their fists.
"Our sons and husbands are in there!" one woman shouted. "They're being tortured! You have to help them!"
The military commander, flushed and sweating, ordered the soldier driving not to stop. It was only when the wheels hit the first protester that the vehicle came to a halt.
This was the second day running this group of about 60 women had risked their lives to try to tell journalists of conditions inside the "filtration" camp (established to filter out civilians from Chechen fighters).
Soldiers grabbed protesters and dragged them from the road. As propaganda exercises go, this one had not been a success.
Confronted by growing allegations of abusive regimes within the filtration camps of Chechnya, Russian officials organised an open day at Chernokozovo.
The compound smelled of fresh paint. Newly decorated walls, however, hinted at a larger whitewash operation.
But visibly frightened prisoners managed to whisper accounts of beatings and abuse. The camp had, they said, been transformed in the space of a week in preparation for the arrival of foreign visitors.
"Before that it was like a horror film in here. Everything you've heard about this camp is true. They beat people terribly," one inmate muttered.
Last month, Human Rights Watch described conditions in Russia's filtration camps as "unspeakable", alleging hundreds of Chechen men were being arbitrarily detained and tortured, beaten and on occasion raped. A second report released on Saturday by Physicians for Human Rights echoed the allegations.
But Major-General Mikhail Nazarkin dismissed the claims. "The people employed here take these allegations personally and are offended that anyone might really believe people working in an honest profession like ours could behave so badly," he said.
There were 12 beds in most of Chernokozovo's 16 cells; despite reports that up to 1,000 Chechens were detained at the camp, officials said the population stood at just 99.
The first inmate on display was Aslan Sadullayev, 21, a Chechen fighter. In a loud, firm voice, apparently for the benefit of officers supervising the conversation, he said conditions in the camp were "very good", prisoners were treated "with great respect" and he had never heard of anyone being mistreated. At times he looked as if he might choke on his words.
In a second cell men lined up dutifully for questions, but camp officials were distracted and prisoners interspersed their louder, formal responses with muttered denials.
Magomed Abuvakhevich said conditions in the camp changed radically about eight days ago, as international concern mounted.
Isa G, 42, whispered he had received two severe beatings from masked camp officials. "But things have changed here in the last few days," he said.
One inmate began weeping. An officer laughed, explaining these were crocodile tears, designed to melt the hearts of impressionable foreigners.
In the corridor outside, a freshly painted sign set out the prison timetable in cheerful red and blue letters.
The camp administrator, Lieutenant-Colonel Takir Sakorov, declared all prisoners had the same rights as any prisoner in Russia. "They do, of course, have the right to a lawyer. Only, unfortunately, there aren't any lawyers in Chechnya. They're too afraid to come here," he said.
Officials were eager to get journalists swiftly out of the compound. But the crowd of women was waiting outside.
They shouted out stories of interned relatives. Journalists were prevented from leaving the bus to talk to them, but some women passed written appeals, begging for help in freeing their relatives, through the window. Others wrote names of missing men in the grime on the side of the bus.
One note said simply: "We know that the international community no longer believes Putin's lies. Please help to stop this torture."
The Guardian