23:35, 15 November 2025

Human rights activists have demanded an investigation into the legality of the actions of Dagestani security forces.

Security officials regularly visit the home of Dagestani resident Vazir Bazanaev, who has been on the preventive watch list since 2013. The last time they did so, they explained their actions by summoning Vazir's wife to the administration. Human rights activists have called on the prosecutor's office to investigate the legality of the security officials' actions.

According to "Caucasian Knot," Vazir Bazanaev, a resident of the village of Chinar, was placed on the preventive watch list in 2013 because he attended a mosque in Derbent. According to law enforcement, several parishioners of this mosque left for Syria, leading to the close surveillance of Bazanaev and his family. The constant attention from security officials has created problems for him, particularly with employment. On April 11, 2019, the Memorial Human Rights Center* released a special project dedicated to the case of Vazir Bazanaev. Human rights activists published dozens of audio recordings of his conversations with security forces. In August 2020, the Memorial Human Rights Center* sent a request to the republic's Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding preventive monitoring, as the agency had announced it had ended this practice back in 2017. In December 2021, human rights activists asked the Russian Prosecutor General's Office to review the legality of preventive monitoring in Dagestan, but the agency found no violations, and the evidence of illegal preventive monitoring listed in the complaint was ignored.

In Dagestan, the practice of placing residents of the republic on preventive monitoring was actively used. People were placed on such a register without justification, and security forces explained their actions by citing a person's beard or mosque attendance. In March 2017, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Dagestan, Abdurashid Magomedov, announced the destruction of orders for preventive registration. "The Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Republic of Dagestan does not maintain a preventive register for the 'extremist' category," the agency's official response stated.

Vazir Bazanaev is a resident of the village of Chinar in the Derbent District of Dagestan. For 12 years, security forces have secretly kept him on a so-called preventive register—an illegal measure used by Dagestani police to persecute citizens under the pretext of fighting extremism, the Memorial Human Rights Center reported.**

Since 2013, police have been regularly calling Vazir, conducting searches, summoning him to the village administration and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and restricting his movements—without any justification or explanation.

On November 6, police came to Bazanaev's home again. This time, the officers were interested not only in Vazir but also in his wife, Elmira. Vazir and Elmira were at work, and only their two young daughters, ages ten and two, were home. The police also came to Bazanaev's previous address, to see his mother. And only after that did they start calling Vazir himself and informing him that his wife was supposed to come to the administration.

"[The police] went to my parents' house, where I used to live, to see my mother: to find out where I was and what I was doing, and asked about my wife. If [the police] had come to their house every day, every time to their wives, or to their children, or to their elderly, sick parents, would they have come like this, terrorized them like this, stopped them at checkpoints, and bullied them?" Bazanaev was indignant.

Human rights activists have demanded that the prosecutor's office and an official investigation be conducted into the legality of the actions of Dagestani police officers.

"The police are harassing citizens allegedly to ensure their appearance at the local administration, although this is not within the police's official powers. At the same time, the police do not inform citizens of the reasons for the summons to the local administration," the statement reads. Publications.

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Translated automatically via Google translate from https://www.kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/417223