Public apology for street video provokes indignation among residents of Chechnya

A resident of Chechnya made public a video in which he apologized for posting a video with a GIBDD (road police) car which drove into a ditch. Instagram users and residents of Chechnya found it absurd to force a person to apologize for a usual street video.

On January 11, an apology video was posted in eldit_net page on Instagram.

"Yesterday, I shot a video by mistake how a GIBDD car drove into a ditch. It happened by mistake. I apologize. On the contrary, I should have encouraged young people not to shoot any videos. We won't be able to live normally without law enforcers. If something happens, we call the GIBDD and other law enforcers ... If someone loaded (the video), please delete it," says the man in the video as translated from the Chechen language by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

As at 12:08 a.m. Moscow time, the video gained 16,600 views, and 88 comments were posted under it, most of them in Chechen. Authors of many comments expressed their indignation and suggested that the man had been forced to voice a public apology.

"What have we come to? Are we actually not allowed to make a video or say anything? And where is the freedom of speech? Has it been cancelled or something like that? I really feel sorry for the person. He is not a little boy to ask for an apology in such a way," wrote, in particular, user d231_22 as translated from the Chechen language by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"Are we actually not allowed to say something?" wondered user dobriy_177_. "Someday this will end, I hope," wrote user gayrahanov2.0.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 13, 2020 at 12:09 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.