CE’s Committee of Ministers calls on Russian authorities to reconsider case against Chechen human rights defender Kutaev

The criminal case against Ruslan Kutaev, a human rights defender from Chechnya, sentenced to four years of imprisonment in a case on illegal drug trafficking, violated the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the case should be reconsidered, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CE) announces. The above information has been reported on the website of the “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence *.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on January 24, 2023, it became known that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) awarded Ruslan Kutaev a compensation in the amount of 52,000 euros for persecution in Chechnya.

This summer, the human rights defenders from the “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence * and employees of the “OVD-Info”* human rights project sent an appeal to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CE) about the violation of Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights by the Russian authorities in relation to Ruslan Kutaev. The above-mentioned article stipulates that the permissible restrictions of rights provided for by the Convention should not be used for purposes contradicting it.

Let us remind you that on February 18, 2014, on the eve of the anniversary of the beginning of the deportation of the Chechen-Ingush people, Ruslan Kutaev organized a scientific conference. The event was held in violation of the order of Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, to move the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow of the Republic’s Peoples to May 10.

*As reported on the website of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the reason for including on March 1, 2024, the unregistered “Memorial” Centre for Human Rights Defence (CHRD) into the register of foreign agents was the spread of “inaccurate information aimed at creating a negative image of the Russian Federation, as well as the Russian Armed Forces.”

**Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.