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A car belonging to Russian rights group Memorial was set on fire in Daghestan on 22 January by unknown people. This was followed by threat­en­ing calls and text messages to staff the following day, ordering the group to cease activ­i­ties or ‘next time we’ll set fire to the office with you inside’.

At around 22:00 on 22 January, Memorial’s driver was alerted by a neighbour that the vehicle belonging to Memorial, which was parked outside his house, was on fire. The fire was quickly extin­guished and a container con­tain­ing flammable liquid was found next to it.

According to the head of the group’s HotSpots programme, Oleg Orlov, the same car was used to transport the lawyer of detained Memorial director in Chechnya Oyub Titiyev two days pre­vi­ous­ly. The group’s website reports that the car was being followed on this journey.

[Read also: Rights activist arrested for ‘drug pos­ses­sion’ in Chechnya]

On 23 January, staff from Memorial’s Dagh­es­tani office received a threat­en­ing text message sent multiple times. ‘You’re walking on the edge of a cliff. Shut down! Next time, we’ll set fire to the office with you inside. The car is a warning’, the message said.

A photo of the threat­en­ing messages published on Facebook by former Memorial board member Yeka­te­ri­na Sokiryan­skaya:

Memorial reported that a few minutes after receiving the messages, someone calling from the same number told them ‘read the text message! Next time… Next time…’. Before hanging up abruptly.

[Read also: Arson attack against Russian rights group Memorial’s Ingushetia office]

Memorial says these are not the first threats directed towards the group’s Dagh­es­tani office. According to them, the threats are directly linked to the situation sur­round­ing Memorial in Chechnya and Ingushetia.

The Sixty-year-old head of the Memorial in Chechnya, Oyub Titiyev, was arrested on 9 January on drugs charges the group claims are fab­ri­cat­ed. A week later the group’s offices in neigh­bour­ing Ingushetia were set ablaze.

Memorial operates through­out Russia, including the North Caucasus. Recent cases the group has worked on in the region include ‘abuse’ by law enforce­ment during special oper­a­tions, mass arrests of and per­se­cu­tion of indi­vid­ual Muslims, torture by police, and attacks on busi­ness­men.

‘No political will in Kremlin to investigate’

Yeka­te­ri­na Sokiryan­skaya, Director of think-tank the Centre for Conflict Analysis and Pre­ven­tion, and a former board member at Memorial, told OC Media the threats likely did not come from Dagh­es­tani author­i­ties.

‘We believe that this is not a Dagh­es­tani story, because relations with the author­i­ties in Daghestan are not hostile. They are perhaps difficult, but func­tion­al. And the reaction of the author­i­ties in Daghestan have been different from in Chechnya. It shows concern: an ombudsman has called offering help, a deputy minister at the Interior Ministry has discussed this question with Memorial’s team. They took this under their control. It’s evident that [the threats] are coming not from Dagh­es­tani author­i­ties’, Sokiryan­skaya said.

Sokiryan­skaya, says the goal of the intim­i­da­tion is likely to stop infor­ma­tion about rights vio­la­tions in the region from coming out. But, she adds, the effect will be the opposite.

‘For example, there will be more attention paid to Chechnya. There has been a big inter­na­tion­al scandal connected the arrest of Oyub Titiyev. Everyone at Memorial and friends of Oyub absolute­ly do not intend on resigning them­selves to the fact that it is impos­si­ble to work in Chechnya. Other mech­a­nisms to work will be found, and undoubt­ed­ly will be going there and con­tin­u­ing to conduct research’, she said.

According to Sokiryan­skaya, if Memorial’s offices in the North Caucasus were to close, the people there would be deprived of a ‘last, albeit weak, legal pro­tec­tion mechanism’ and become even more vul­ner­a­ble to ‘wide­spread impunity’.

Sokiryan­skaya noted that she does not expect a full inves­ti­ga­tion of the situation, because that ‘requires a political will from the highest level — the Kremlin’.

‘Such political will has been absent in relation to all cases connected with the Chechen Republic over the last ten years. It is com­plete­ly absent’, Sokiryan­skaya concluded.