ECtHR awards over million euros to relatives of those who disappeared in Chechnya

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has issued its decision on cases of 16 residents of Chechnya and one resident of Ingushetia, who were detained by militaries in 2002-2004 and then disappeared. The Russian authorities should pay compensations to their relatives amounting more than one million euros.

Today, the ECtHR has published its decision on ten cases concerning the disappearance of 17 residents of Chechnya and Ingushetia. All the cases concerned enforced disappearances of people detained by law enforcers during special operations conducted in the 2000s, Ksenia Babich, the press secretary of the "Legal Initiative", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The "Legal Initiative" represented the interest to the victims in six cases; two cases were accompanied by the lawyers of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial"; and two cases were run by the lawyer Dokka Itslaev and the organization "Mothers of Chechnya", says the ECtHR's decision posted on its website.

"The ECtHR's decision will come into force on March 4, 2019. Now, there is a lot of talk about a possible Russia's withdrawal from the Council of Europe, but even if it happens, the Russian government will have to fulfil all its obligations not only on already announced decisions of the ECtHR, but also on all the violations of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) committed within six months after the announcement of the withdrawal," Olga Gnezdilova, a lawyer of the "Legal Initiative" Project, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 4, 2018 at 09:16 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.