Office of HRCCR Republic closed

At present, the office of the Human Rights Centre of the Chechen Republic (HRCCR) in Grozny is not functioning; and its head Minkail Ezhiev is looking for a new premise for his organization. This was reported by Kheda Saratova, head of the "Objective" Information-Analytical Centre.

"Now Ezhiev is forced to change the place of his office because he fears for the life of his employees," Kheda Saratova told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 30 a group of armed men in black military uniform broke into the office of the HRCCR. Without introducing themselves and without expressing any specific claims, the invaders began threatening and insulting the office women.

"The people who came on that day to the HRCCR were armed, behaved rudely and swore, which is unacceptable for the Caucasus and Chechnya. They abused the women in the office and Minkail," added Kheda Saratova.

"Minkail says that he would spare no effort to find out who those people were and to have them duly punished," said the woman and continued: "If Ezhiev closes his HRCCR, there will be practically no other place in Chechnya, where people could come with their pain. There's not a single independent human rights defender or public activist, able to help people with the same knowledge of the matter, like Minkail."

According to her story, Ezhiev was involved, in particular, in the trials of young people who were accused as militants' aides "only because they were their classmates and were sitting at the same desk with them."

Igor Kalyapin, the chairman of the interregional public organization the "Committee Against Torture", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that Minkail Ezhiev and his colleagues did not address him for help.

At the same time, he was surprised that "the human rights activists failed to timely file a complaint and did not address the law enforcement bodies."

"A particular man broke in, accompanied by his guards, and threatened Ezhiev personally and his people. Of course, I know more details, but I'm not entitled to disclose them. It is difficult to help people who do not agree to talk out loud about the instigators of the incident," he stressed.

According to his story, this situation is usual for today's Chechnya. "People are afraid to talk about those who oppress them in order not to incur even greater trouble; however, they only exacerbate the situation," said Kalyapin.

Oleg Orlov, head of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial" told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that a request was forwarded on this incident to the prosecutor's office and to investigatory asking them to check the circumstances. "But most likely, according to our experience, there will be no answer earlier than in a month," said Orlov.

"The fact that this incident took place became known at the Ministry of Internal Affairs only after we received an application," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by source from Chechen law enforcement bodies. "It should be still cleared out about the particular power agency, if any, whose employees were really involved in the incident."