Scandal with Comedy Woman reveals trend for youth's copying Kadyrov's style of baiting

The practice of public apologies that has spread in Russia has nothing to do with Caucasian and Islamic traditions, rights defenders Tatiana Lokshina and Vadim Mukhanov have stated. According to their version, young people of the Caucasus are using it because of the Chechen authorities' impunity for humiliating residents of the region. The scandal with the Comedy Woman TV Show is not the first one, when popular people have to apologize for their words.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Comedy Club Production Company apologized for the fragment from its show, in which an actress performed the role of an Ingush girl from an escort agency. Social networks users expressed threats to the show performers.

"It's hard not to see the similarities in the behaviour of young people demanding an apology with the manner of the head of Chechnya and his law enforcers to demand public apologies for several years already," said Ms Lokshina, the Russia's Human Rights Watch (HRW) Programme Director.

She added that the sketch itself was "an example of bad taste," noting the need for "the federal officials to react to jokes on ethnic issues."

"The practice of public apologies appeared in Chechnya; it was initiated by the head of the republic Ramzan Kadyrov," said Vadim Mukhanov, a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Caucasian Problems and Regional Security of the Moscow State University of International Relations (known as MGIMO).

He treats "the behaviour of the Comedy Club Production Company, which apologized for her bad humour," as reasonable.

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