Chechen authorities adopt Stalinist practice of renouncing relatives

The public renunciation of relatives is a disgrace in the eyes of Chechen natives, and, using such a method, the authorities of Chechnya have silenced many of their opponents from the diaspora, blogger Said-Khusein Magomadov suggests. The Chechen authorities reproduce the methods typical for totalitarian regimes, note human rights defenders, interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that relatives of Said-Khusein Magomadov, who lives in Austria and criticizes Chechen authorities, had held a gathering, where they cursed Said-Khusein for his texts criticizing Ramzan Kadyrov and Chechen authorities.

Blogger Said-Khusein Magomadov believes that everyone understands the artificial nature of apologies. "This is done to intimidate others who would like to criticize the Chechen authorities openly. To prevent that, they put pressure on relatives," Said-Khusein Magomadov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Such a method of putting pressure on migrants, as a threat of their relatives' renunciation, often proves to be effective, the blogger notes. "It works for a lot of migrants. Many of them are afraid of such type of punishment, because it is considered a shame for natives of Chechnya, when their relatives are forced to apologize. Everything that happens in Chechnya is exactly like in the Stalin era. The only difference is that then they did everything openly, but now they do it secretly," said Said-Khusein Magomadov.

According to Ruslan Kutaev, the president of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations, the public renunciations are aimed not so much at punishing a guilty person as for the intimidation of other critics of the regime.

Ruslan Kutaev compared the public renunciations of relatives with the practice of the Stalin era, modified to take into account the Chechen traditions. "In the complex, all this is the legacy of the Stalinist system, when, as we still remember, a husband blamed his wife, and a wife blamed her husband and children. Why does the government do that, although everyone understands the renunciation is artificial? They do that because it is morally and psychologically hard for people when their relatives are being humiliated. Many people cannot go through that, and the authorities take advantage of this fact," emphasized the president of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 15, 2020 at 03:45 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.