HRW demands to release President of "Assembly of Caucasian Nations" detained in Chechnya

Russian authorities should immediately release Ruslan Kutaev, a resident of Chechnya and the President of the "Assembly of Caucasian Nations", who was detained on February 20 by republic's power agents, and ensure the effective investigation of his report about torture at the police, the international Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Kutaev was detained in the village of Gekhi, Urus-Martan District, on February 20. The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) claims that Kutaev was suspected of illegal possession of drugs. According to the human rights organization "Committee against Torture", after detention, extensive bruising was found on Kutaev's body; the officials' actions against him are qualified as torture.

The HRW associates Kutaev's prosecution with the fact that on February 18, during the conference "Deportation of Chechens: What Was It and Can It Be Forgotten?" he criticized the position of the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, who had banned memorial events on February 23 to mark the anniversary of deportation of Chechens and Ingushes.

On February 25, the day after Kutaev was visited by Igor Kalyapin, the chairman of the "Committee against Torture", Ramzan Kadyrov, while speaking on air of the local TV broadcast "Vainakh", treated Kalyapin as "traitor of the nation," who "defends criminals and drug addicts," the "Novaya Gazeta" reports.