News

After the death of Alexei Navalny, Sochi townspeople began leaving in his memory at the memorial complex, where official events are held on the Fatherland Defender Day. After that, authorities moved the February 23 celebrations to another place; and the memorial was surrounded by a fence allegedly for repairs.

Australia has imposed sanctions on Murat Kumpilov, the head of Adygea, and on Ilyas Umakhanov and Arsen Kanokov, the senators (members of the Russia's Federation Council) from Dagestan and the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR), accordingly.

Case files of people's forced disappearances in Chechnya are classified; and even relatives of those kidnapped have no legal ways to find out details or achieve an efficient investigation, human rights defenders have pointed out, adding that appeals to international structures yield no results.

In Grozny, Chechen officials and MPs held a rally in memory of the victims of the Stalin’s repressions. The event took place without the participation of Ramzan Kadyrov, who limited himself to a post in the Telegram channel on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the deportation of the Vainakh people.

The Makhachkala police department is engaged in finalizing the charges to be brought against thirteen detainees in a criminal case on the death of Kurban Dalgatov.

In Nazran, hundreds of people came to a mourning meeting on the 80th anniversary of Stalin’s deportation of Ingush and Chechens to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Every Chechen family suffered from deportation, participants in the action held in the Novolaksky District of Dagestan have stated. According to their stories, the memory about the Vainakhs' deportation and about victims thereof is transferred from generation to generation.

The US Treasury has included Akhmed Dudaev, the head of the Ministry of Nationalities of Chechnya, into the sanctions list. The Minister has stated that he fears only sanctions from Ramzan Kadyrov and the Almighty.

On the anniversary of Stalin's deportation of Vainakhs, the human rights "Memory Project" has issued a documentary about the people who fell victim to kidnappings and forced disappearances in Chechnya in the 2000s.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg has awarded compensations to two Rostov and one Volgograd residents detained at protest actions in 2021 and 2022.

February 23 marked the 80th anniversary of the deportation of Chechens and Ingushes to Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The head of Chechnya and republic's state-owned media have passed over this date in silence.

The decision of the Russia's Supreme Court (SC), which has refused to acquit the eight residents of Dagestan killed in Chechnya in 2016, was expected for the casualties' mothers, but they have declared their commitment to continue their fight for justice.

The advocates of Andrei Vyazov, an activist, arrested in Krasnodar on February 17, after a rally in memory of Alexei Navalny, have filed a complaint against the arrest decision. Because of Vyazov's arrest, his elderly relatives were left without help, his girlfriend has informed.

Political analysts and activists spoke out against an initiative to recognize animal rights defenders as foreign agents voiced by Yevgeny Dunaev, a member of the Astrakhan Regional Duma.

The initiative of residents of Chechen-Aul to open gates on the anniversary of the deportation, as is done on days of mourning, has become a way for the people to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of deportation in the absence of the opportunity to organize mass events, human rights defenders note.

Video of the party on the Fiagdon River has given rise to an offer to ban the rental of houses and apartments by unmarried couples, as well as public apologies and harassment of alleged participants in social networks. According to Telegram channels, one party participant was beaten up.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Vainakhs' deportation during the Great Patriotic War (WW II), Muslim commemoration rites will be held in the Novolaksky District of Dagestan, the public organization "Aukh" has informed. It its turn, the local prosecutor's office has warned the organizers that it is inadmissible to hold any unsanctioned actions, including rallies and pickets.

A court in Maykop has fined a student by 30,000 roubles for her comments in a social network "about the negative nature of using the Russian Armed Forces" during the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

The court agreed to include in the case on discrediting the Russian Armed Forces instituted against Oleg Orlov*, the co-chair of the “Memorial” Centre for Defence of Human Rights, the character reference letters in which human rights defenders from Chechnya and Kabardino-Balkaria pointed out the importance of his activities to respect human rights in Northern Caucasus.

The punishment of 3.5 years in a penal colony, requested by the prosecutor for Nikita Zhuravel, a native of Volgograd, accused of burning the Koran, is severe by the standards of the Russian law enforcement practice; and the prosecution has incorrectly qualified the defendant's actions, Alexander Verkhovsky believes.