18:01, 26 April 2025

Cassation Court cancels decision on compensation for activists of “Marem” shelter

Women in a court. Picture made in Copilot by the "Caucasian Knot"

In Pyatigorsk, the Fifth Cassation Court has cancelled the decisions on compensation for employees of the “Marem” shelter in Dagestan.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that in June 2024, a court recognized the violation of the rights of Svetlana Anokhina, Iraida Smirnova, and Maisarat Kilyaskhanova and obliged the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs to pay them compensation. In their complaint, lawyers have indicated that the amount of 15,000 roubles for each victim does not correspond to the scale of moral damage and violates the principle of justice.

On June 10, 2021, Dagestani law enforcers and their colleagues from Chechnya came to a shelter in Makhachkala (an apartment for victims of domestic violence) to take away Chechen native Khalimat Taramova, who had fled the republic. Human rights defender and journalist Svetlana Anokhina, as well as Iraida Smirnova and Maisarat Kilyaskhanova, who stayed in the shelter at that time, were injured.

The court considered two complaints, including a complaint from the shelter employees about insufficient compensation and a complaint from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), which requested the court to cancel the compensation. The case has been sent for a new consideration.

Activists from the “Team Against Torture”*, representing the interests of the victims, are not satisfied with the outcome of the trial. “We expected the claim to be fully satisfied,” the “Team Against Torture”* noted.

The “Marem” initiative group helps young women from Dagestan, Chechnya, and Ingushetia with the evacuation, states its leader Svetlana Anokhina. In 2024, the “Marem” initiative group helped 20 women with the evacuation, and eight others got help since the beginning of 2025. The “Marem” initiative group also provides victims of domestic violence with legal and psychological assistance.

“The most important cases for us are when we manage to make the law work in Russia. As it was in case of Aishat Magomedova, whose parents kidnapped her from Moscow, beat her up, and took her to Dagestan. And we managed to make the police work in the case,” Svetlana Anokhina recalled.

*The “Team against Torture” (TaT, formerly the “Committee against Torture” – CaT) was created by the lawyers who had earlier worked for the CaT, which was included into the register of the NCOs performing the functions of foreign agents.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 24, 2025 at 08:15 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: СK correspondent