Human rights activists have called on Armenian authorities to return Aishat Baimuradova's body to her friends.

Friends of Ayshat Baimuradova, a Chechen woman murdered in Yerevan, are ready to give her a proper funeral, human rights activists said, calling on Armenian authorities to hand over the girl's body. They published a petition asking for Baimuradova's remains to be given to people willing to bury her.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," 23-year-old Ayshat Baimuradova, a native of Chechnya, was found dead in a rented apartment in Yerevan on October 19. She fled to Armenia to escape domestic violence, but publicly criticized Kadyrov's government. Human rights activists have not received the final results of the examination of Baimuradova's body. a request was sent to Russia regarding her burial, but no one was willing to take Baimuradova's body home within three months. The girl's partner, who lives in Yerevan, is seeking the right to bury Aishat, but the authorities refuse to hand over the body to him, as by law only the next of kin can dispose of the body.

A new petition on the Ayshat Baimuradova case, the second one, was published today on the Change.Org platform. Its authors are calling on the Armenian authorities to release the body of the murdered Chechen native to her friends for burial.

“Unlike in Russia, in Armenia such petitions can have an impact – the more people sign them, the greater the attention to the case,” according to a publication by the SK SOS* Crisis Group.

Human rights activists recalled that Aishat's body has been stored in the morgue for over three months. "The girl's relatives have not expressed a desire to bury her in her homeland, so it is now extremely important to ensure the transfer of her remains to close friends in Armenia for a dignified burial. This measure is necessary to respect her dignity and comply with international human rights standards," the petition states.

The authors of the petition called on Armenian officials not only to return Aishat's body to her relatives as soon as possible, but also to "facilitate the most transparent investigation and information procedures in the case."

Baymuradova's friends intend to bury her in Armenia, according to the petition. As of 4:55 PM Moscow time today, 22 people had signed the petition.

By not collecting the bodies of the murdered Chechen women from the morgue, relatives are demonstrating their disdain for them, human rights activists from the Marem group previously pointed out. They noted that the relatives of Larisa Arsanukayeva, who was murdered in Nice, acted similarly: they did not collect the woman's body for more than two months. Arsanukayeva was buried in her homeland only in early January.

A "Caucasian Knot" reader with the nickname judie also called the behavior of Aishat's relatives exemplary. "The fact that the relatives did not collect the girl's body from the morgue speaks volumes. This is both indirect evidence of their involvement in the incident and a de facto rejection of a family member. Chechens do not typically leave their dead in morgues, and even those born in Chechnya who die outside the region, including in Europe and Scandinavia, are usually brought back to their homeland for burial. Despite the fact that in the latter cases, this costs quite a lot of money," the December 9 comment reads.

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