Court upholds Chechen MIA's lawsuit against rights defenders

The "Civil Assistance" Committee, Ramazan Djalaldinov and "Novaya Gazeta" have disgraced the reputation of the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the Supreme Court of Chechnya has decided and refused to satisfy the rights defendants' appeal.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 2, 2017, the Shatoi District Court of Chechnya upheld the claim of the regional MIA branch on protection of honour, dignity and business reputation against Ramazan Djalaldinov, a resident of the village of Kenkhi, "Novaya Gazeta" and the "Civil Assistance" Committee. The Committee's lawyers appealed against the District Court's judgement.

According to the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", today, the Supreme Court of Chechnya has upheld the above judgement of the Shatoi District Court.

Let us remind you that the MIA lodged the above claim after the post of Svetlana Gannushkina (Chair of the Committee) on the in Facebook and Elena Milashina's article in the "Novaya Gazeta". The materials covered the fate of the above Ramazan Djalaldinov.

In April 2016, Ramazan Djalaldinov, a Kenkhi villager, applied to President Putin with a complaint about corruption in Chechnya; later, he was persecuted and disappeared in November 2016. On November 10, Ramazan Djalaldinov contacted the rights defender Svetlana Gannushkina, explaining that he was forced to leave his village after they had brought him and his wife Nazirat to Grozny to meet Apti Alaudinov, the First Deputy Interior Minister of Chechnya. As Gannushkina wrote in her Facebook page, Djalaldinov told her that he had faced threats; they took away his passport and mobile phone, and the village itself was in fact "taken under siege."

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.