ECtHR accepts complaint about detention of human rights defenders in Chechnya

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ordered the Russian authorities to answer questions concerning the complaint about the detention of activists from the Joint Mobile Group (JMG) in Chechnya in 2010, the Committee Against Torture (CaT) reported.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on February 7, 2010, Dmitry Yegoshin, Roman Veretennikov, and Vladislav Sadykov, lawyers from the human rights defenders' JMG, operating under the auspices of the Committee against Torture in Chechnya, were detained. They spent more than 15 hours at the police station.

"The incident with the detention of the lawyers from the JMG in 2010 was the first episode in a series of pressure and attacks on our employees in Chechnya. Later, the pressure intensified, and we had to move the office outside the republic because of fear for the lives of our employees. In all cases, the guilty persons went unpunished," said Dmitry Piskunov, the head of the CaT's North-Caucasian branch, as quoted on the CaT's website.

The CaT's employees filed a complaint about a crime by claiming that the law enforcers had exceeded their powers on February 10, 2010. However, the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) refused to institute criminal proceedings.