Ramzan Kadyrov responds to article in "Novaya Gazeta" about families of militants

Ramzan Kadyrov has announced that former militants and their relatives are not oppressed in Chechnya. As an example, he has mentioned some of his subordinates.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 6, the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" posted an article prepared by Sokiryanskaya and entitled "Our father is a prisoner of war". The article described the problems of adaption faced by families of former militants. It provoked a negative reaction from several state-run Chechen media at once. On May 25, the official media posted an open letter from relatives of former militants and demanded to remove the Sokiryanskaya's article from the website of the "Novaya Gazeta".

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has denied the information that children or other family members of former militants and members of illegal armed formations (IAFs) are being oppressed in the republic. On May 27, the leader of Chechnya spoke on the above topic in an interview to his assistant Akhmed Dudaev, the director of the "Grozny" ChGTRK (Chechen TV and Radio Company).

Ramzan Kadyrov has said that children of law enforcers and former militants not only study together, but even work in the same departments in the region. The leader of the Chechen republic has also noted that he will dismiss officials who would interfere with the normal lives of relatives of former militants.

At night on May 27, on its social network page, the "Grozny" TV Channel also announced a special report prepared by the TV Channel and devoted to the refutation of the facts described in the article "Our father is a prisoner of war" posted by the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta". In its video, the "Grozny" ChGTRK calls the information posted on the newspaper's website slanderous and also points out the alleged affiliation of the "Novaya Gazeta" with the US Department of State and NGOs banned in Russia by the court.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 28, 2020 at 11:59 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.