Social media users challenge Kadyrov's assertion about voluntary New Year celebrations

In response to allegations of human rights violations, the head of Chechnya has posted a video with a crowd of people going to the New Year Tree in Grozny. Local residents have found that the video confirms complaints about coercion to participate in the holiday.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Chechen authorities declared over 120,000 people to have gathered in central Grozny on New Year's Eve. However, townspeople complained that state servants (from budget-funded agencies) had to participate in the celebrations under the threat of dismissal.

Abdurakhman Akhaev, a user of the social network "VKontakte" disagreed with Kadyrov's statement that the video "demonstrates the New Year sentiments."

Opponents of the New Year celebrations have also claimed that this is not a Muslim holiday; moreover, it is an anniversary of the storming of Grozny in late 1994-early 1995. One of local residents has noted that he did not even let his children go to New Year's festivities at school.

The video, in which young people are waltzing under the New Year Tree, caused a sharply negative reaction on the Instagram.

In another republic of Northern Caucasus, in Kabardino-Balkaria, the refusal of some residents to participate in New Year celebrations has drawn attention of the Antiterrorist Commission, which instructed the education department to collect information about schoolchildren from such families.