27 September 2016, 10:56
Petition in support of Zhalaudi Geriev collects more than 20,000 signatures
A petition demanding a fair trial in the case against Zhalaudi Geriev, a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, sentenced to three years of imprisonment in a penal colony, has collected more than 20,000 signatures.
Zhalaudi Geriev was sentenced to three years in colony on charges of marijuana possession. Geriev made a confession to investigators under pressure and retracted testimonies at the trial. The defence appealed against the sentence, pointing to numerous falsifications in case files, the apparent contradictions in the prosecution's version and involvement of "hired regular witnesses" by policemen.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the petition in support of Zhalaudi Geriev was published on the open civil platform "Change.org" on September 11.
As at 10:55 a.m. Moscow time, the petition collected already 20,013 signatures. In their comments, people who sign the petition continue supporting Zhalaudi Geriev. They believe that his guilt has not been proven and associate his prosecution with his journalistic activities.
"The innocence has been proved; however, the verdict of guilty has been pronounced. Such cases did not take place even in the year of 1937," writes Vladislav Melnichuk, a resident of Moscow.
"Planting of drugs has long been used, and it is a widely used way. And for this reason, I stand for consideration of the case outside Chechnya, where the guy has no chance in general," writes Yulia Gorokhova from Moscow.
Earlier, the statements in support of Zhalaudi Geriev have been also disseminated by the Russian Union of Journalists, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", and international human rights organizations. The texts of the statements are published in the section "Legal texts" on the "Caucasian Knot".
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.
