Zarifa Sautieva complains to court about custody conditions in SIZO

Zarifa Sautieva, an Ingush activist, arrested within the case of violence at a rally in Magas, said at the trial about severe custody conditions at the SIZO (pre-trial prison).

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 12, Zarifa Sautieva was detained, and since July 15, she has been kept under arrest in Nalchik. On July 20, the defence of Zarifa Sautieva filed a complaint about her arrest. On August 1, the SC of the KBR upheld the decision to keep Zarifa Sautieva in custody.

On August 1, at the court session, Sautieva made an emotional complaint about hard life in the SIZO. "They say it's an exemplary SIZO, but, nevertheless, the custody conditions are very harsh. They hardly found a single non-smoking woman in the whole facility to put me into her cell," said the activist.

Magomed Abubakarov, an advocate, has treated the SC's decision as "completely unjustified." "There is not a single argument confirming Sautieva's guilt in the case files. The phrases, on which a linguistic examination was made, fail to indicate that Sautieva called for the use of force against 'Rosgvardia' (Russian National Guard). She is a blogger; she came there to cover the event live. On the contrary, in the video, she calls 'idiots' those who violate the order," Mr Abubakarov has stated.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 1, 2019 at 08:39 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.