Chechens gathered outside Council of Europe to protest wave of arbitrary arrests, they say, targeting relatives of pro-Russian regime opponents
“Chechen lives matter”: some 300 Chechens gathered this Saturday, January 8 in Strasbourg in front of the Council of Europe to protest against a wave of arbitrary arrests targeting, according to them, relatives of opponents of the regime.
According to the demonstrators, around 100 people have been arrested in recent weeks in Chechnya, appearing in the entourage of “bloggers, human rights activists and public figures living abroad who criticize the policies of the Russian authorities”.
Half have been released, said the demonstrators who say they have not heard from the others, fearing that they “will be subjected to torture”. In the afternoon, a delegation was to deliver a motion to a representative of the Council of Europe denouncing this “state terrorism” and calling on “all EU countries. […] to stop deporting Chechen political refugees ”to Russia.
Based in Strasbourg, the pan-European organization, which monitors human rights on the continent, brings together 47 member states, including Russia.
“Clear evidence”
Several Russian media have reported cases of disappearances or arrests of family members of Chechen opposition figures in the last weeks of 2021, information denied by local authorities.
The independent news site Meduza reported at the end of December that at least six opposition figures living outside Chechnya had reported the disappearance of relatives in this republic of the Russian Caucasus, but also in Russia.
In a report published at the end of 2018, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) pointed to “clear evidence” of persecution targeting homosexuals, drug users, human rights defenders, lawyers, independent media and civil society organizations in Chechnya.
The OSCE evoked the responsibility of Russia, considering that it “tolerated” a regime of “impunity” for these acts.