Mass arrests during protests ahead of Eurovision Song Contest in Baku in 2012 (Picture: Telegraph.co.uk)
The latest report by the Institute for Democratic Initiatives, independent Azerbaijani NGO, shows a spike in the number of administrative arrests, which are used as a ‘tool of political pressure’ in the country.
The Grotniki refugee centre (Marcin Stępień /Agencja Gazeta)
Mass executions, murders, abductions, rape, torture, intimidation, extortion, forged criminal proceedings, monstrous corruption — this is what Ramzan Kadyrov’s Chechnya looks like today. The Russian republic is completely disconnected from the Russian legal system — with the consent of the Russian authorities.
Ruslan Kasheshov (Memorial)
Rights group Memorial has published a report detailing the alleged torture of a local businessman in the Russian Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the summer of 2018. [Read more…]
Ingushetia’s capital of Magas (Photo: Dominik K. Cagara / OC Media)
An activist against Ingushetia’s controversial land deal with Chechnya and a local journalist have been detained. According to his lawyer, journalist Rashid Maysigov, who is accused of drug possession and treason, is being tortured by the authorities.
Omar Abdurashidov (right) (Saida Vagabova/OC Media)
A court in the Russian Republic of Daghestan has remanded two former senior officials into two months of pre-trial detention on suspicion of financing terrorist activities. [Read more…]
Khasavyurt (Wikipedia)
A man in the Russian Republic of Daghestan has been tortured into confessing to murder, his lawyer says. Sapiyat Magomedova told OC Media she believes police in the city of Khasavyurt intended to pin other unsolved crimes on her client, Kamil Khayrudinov, as part of a drive to improve crime statistics. [Read more…]
Abutalib Shakhruyev (OC Media)
A man from the Russian Republic of Daghestan has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) over torture he says he was subjected to at Daghestan’s Centre for Countering Extremism. Abutalib Shakhruyev was sentenced to 11 years in prison in March for ‘aiding and financing members of illegal armed formations’. [Read more…]
Mirza Subeliani (1TV)
A former official on trial for ‘compromising’ the Khorava Street murder investigation has threatened to release incriminating recordings of senior officials which he claimed could bring down the government, Rustavi 2 has reported. [Read more…]
A Friday prayer at Prison No 10 in Saratov (ansar.ru)
Prisoners from the Caucasus in Russian jails receive a ‘special treatment’ of beatings, bullying, and torture from both prison authorities and their fellow inmates. But in the ‘green zone’ prisons, where Muslim inmates have developed a system of resistance — the North Caucasians are fighting back.
The burnt down administration building in Rutul
Arson charges against four men in the Russian Republic of Daghestan allegedly based on testimony gained under torture have been dropped. The four — who were accused of setting fire to the administration building in the village of Rutul — still face drugs and weapons charges.
