Apache Authentication Problem in cgi-bin

I’d like to htaccess password protect a file within the cgi-bin folder

/var/www/virtual/mydomain.com/cgi-bin/.htaccess

The file has been generated by Virtualmin like so:

AuthUserFile /var/www/virtual/mydomain.com/cgi-bin/.htpasswd
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Statistics"
require valid-user

Although I got only "require valid-user" defined it brings up this error in the log file:

[Sun Nov 25 02:41:08 2007] [error] [client 201.230.186.15] GROUP: mydomain.com not in required group(s).

which makes no sense at all, does it?

While googling I found this related posting here:
http://www.unixadmintalk.com/f44/apache-2-2-error-not-required-group-s-231853/

and while looking at the enabled apache modules I found

auth_sys_group.load
authz_groupfile.load

among others, too. Do I need to disable any of those modules to get this working?

I actually only want to protect the awstats.pl file within the cgi-bin folder with the <files> directive, but if not even the whole folder can be protected I can’t do that either.

Any pointers would be very much appreciated.

P.S. I’ve created various password protected folders on the server, so this is not a general problem, but maybe specific to the cgi-bin folder.