Residents of Chechnya fear of reprisals provoked by story about "drugstore" party

The Chechen police are engaged in carrying out an inspection after the detention of five participants of a party in Pyatigorsk, who confessed to taking psychotropic substances. A TV story about party participants can provoke the use of violence against them, residents of Chechnya believe.

The story titled "A terrible case beyond decency. A story of persons who have forgotten their roots and their people" was shown on Grozny in the evening on November 7. It told the TV audience about a group of five persons who rested in a rented apartment in Pyatigorsk by taking psychotropic substances. The group included an elderly man, a taxi driver from Chechnya, three young women and one young man. In the TV story, reporters showed the participants of the party and their relatives and mentioned their names and surnames.

The lives of the party participants are in serious danger. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by residents of Chechnya and local observers, who pointed out the inadmissibility of public humiliation.

"I saw the material. Such things do not compliment anyone. And it is even more disgraceful that this is shown by our TV. It has been done to prevent other people from behaving like that, but nobody thinks about the consequences. Why have they shown in the TV story the children of that taxi driver and the mother of one of the young women? Why have they been disgraced in front of the whole republic?" asks Roza, a resident of Grozny.

"Those young women have relatives. In case if someone reproaches them for the fact that members of their family or clan behaved inappropriately, this could provoke reprisals. And it is still unknown how it will end. I do not justify anyone, but I believe that no one should be publicly disgraced. If a person is guilty, then punish him or her according to the law," said Kheda, a teacher of a school in Grozny.

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