Human rights defender Orlov complains to ECtHR about threats from “Kadyrov killer”

According to a complaint sent to the European Court, the threats that Oleg Orlov, a member of the Council of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) “Memorial”*, and his colleagues received in 2019, resulted from the Ramzan Kadyrov’s call to punish authors of gossips about Chechnya.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that at a meeting held in the government of Chechnya on November 4, 2019, Ramzan Kadyrov demanded to punish the authors of the negative materials about the republic and social media users commenting on those materials.

On June 21, lawyers of the HRC “Memorial”* filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in the interests of Oleg Orlov. The complaint concerns threats to the human rights defender and his colleagues, posted on November 28, 2019 on the HRC’s official page on VKontakte by user Riana Prizrak-Dnr.

The “Kadyrov killer”, as the user called himself, demanded to “leave alone” the leader of Chechnya, otherwise Oleg Orlov, his colleagues, and their relatives would be subjected to brutal torture. The investigating bodies refused to consider a complaint about threats filed by the human rights defenders, the message from the HRC “Memorial”* received by the “Caucasian Knot” states.

In the complaint, Oleg Orlov emphasizes that although it was not a public officer who posted the threats, they were a direct result of the actions of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. In order to silence human rights defenders and journalists in Chechnya, they are attacked, kidnapped, imprisoned, and killed, the HRC “Memorial”* claims. The human rights defenders refer to a whole list of such cases. Among them are the kidnapping of Zhalaudi Geriev, a correspondent of the “Caucasian Knot”, the cases against activist Ruslan Kutaev and human rights defender Oyub Titiev, and the murder of Natalia Estemirova.

* The organization is included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) in the “Register of non-profit organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent”.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 22, 2021 at 06:31 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.