16:03, 30 March 2018

Rights defenders call on to appeal to President Putin about Oyub Titiev's case

Oyub Titiev in the court, March 19, 2018. Photo: press service of HRC 'Memorial'

The human rights organization "Committee Against Torture" has announced a campaign in support of Oyub Titiev and invited everyone to send an electronic appeal to Vladimir Putin with a request to transfer the Oyub Titiev's case to investigators outside Chechnya.

Oyub Titiev, the head of the Grozny office of the HRC "Memorial", is under arrest since January 11 on charges of possessing marijuana. He stated that the drug was planted on him by a law enforcer, but investigators refused to initiate a criminal case on his application. The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" recognized Titiev to be a political prisoner.

Today, human rights defenders have posted a sample appeal to Vladimir Putin on the NGO's website. The letter contains a request to resolve the issue of transferring outside Chechnya both the Oyub Titiev's case and the verification materials on his complaint about the drugs planted to him.

In particular, the letter notes that Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov spoke about Oyub Titiev as a drug addict and "presented the circumstances of the case under investigation as an established fact."

Ramzan Kadyrov has several times said in public that the international organizations are concerned over the fate of the "drug addict" detained in Chechnya. In January, in his interview to the Daily Storm, the leader of Chechnya reported having a witness that "Oyub Titiev was smoking anasha." However, later, advocate Ilya Novikov reported that a prosecution witness had failed to recognize Oyub Titiev.

According to the sample letter to Vladimir Putin, the Ramzan Kadyrov's statements "testify to the impossibility of conducting an objective and comprehensive investigation on the territory of the Chechen Republic."

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