17 September 2018, 13:38
"Memorial": young people may be radicalized by verdict to Kurchaloi young people
A call to hold a rally against the sentence to 14 residents of the Kurchaloi District did not lead to protests in Grozny. When young people in Chechnya loose the possibility to legally protest and protect themselves by legal means, they get radicalized, the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" noted.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 12, residents of Chechnya reported severe sentences to 14 residents of the Kurchaloi District for terrorism. Users of social networks disseminated a call to hold a rally in protest against those verdicts. Residents of Chechnya did not rule out that that was a provocation initiated by the authorities to identify dissenters. On the TV air, relatives of the sentenced young people said they never initiated any calls for a rally.
Rights defenders had no chance to send their observers to the trial in the case against the residents of the Kurchaloi District and had no information on the progress of the investigation, since the relatives of the defendants believed there would be soft sentences promised by the authorities and did not want make the situation public. The Chechen residents had no advocates willing to fight against the accusation and thus stayed without legal protection, the HRC "Memorial" emphasizes.
"We cannot say that all those young people are not guilty. But in any case, the defendants were treated unfair," the HRC "Memorial" states on its website.
The rights defenders note that together with the persons sentenced in January 2017, other people were detained and "disappeared without a trace." The question is about the residents of Chechnya, who, according to the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta", became victims of extrajudicial execution.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 16, 2018 at 11:45 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
