Mansur Movlaev reported violations of his rights in pretrial detention.

Mansur Movlaev, a native of Chechnya, said that one of the employees at the pretrial detention center in Kazakhstan, where Movlaev is awaiting a decision on his extradition, periodically insulted him, threatened him, and exerted psychological pressure.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," on June 3, Mansur Movlaev reported that his brother Zelimkhan had been kidnapped in Chechnya and subjected to violence, and on June 6, he reported that his parents had been forcibly taken away to an unknown location in Chechnya. The abduction of Movlaev's relatives fits into a trend in the crackdown on critics of the Chechen authorities.

Mansur Movlaev wrote a letter to his lawyers complaining about the violation of his rights in the Almaty pretrial detention center. The letter was published on Movlaev's Instagram page* on June 14.

"[One of the pretrial detention facility employees] repeatedly made provocative and offensive statements, raised questions about my nationality, emphasized that I was an 'outsider,' and also engaged in threats and psychological pressure," Movlaev wrote.

He noted that this employee repeatedly entered his cell, turning off the video recorder, thereby violating established procedures. "I ask the competent authorities to investigate the reported facts and, if possible, limit this employee's contact with me," Mansur Movlaev noted.

Many prisoners and staff members are aware of Movlaev's situation, the risk of extradition, and the ordeal he has endured, the letter states. "For over a year now, I've been unable to communicate with my parents and loved ones, so moral support from those around me is of great importance to me," Movlaev emphasized.

This post on Mansur Movlaev's Instagram* page, which has 6,216 followers, received 124 likes and 18 comments at 6:55 AM Moscow time on June 15. Most of the authors expressed outrage at the behavior of the pretrial detention facility employee.

As of 6:55 AM Moscow time, the websites of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kazakhstan, the Committee of the Penitentiary System of Kazakhstan, the Almaty Prosecutor's Office, and the Prosecutor General's Office of Kazakhstan have not commented on Mansur Movlaev's complaint regarding the violation of his rights in the pretrial detention facility.

As a reminder, Mansur Movlaev was detained by security forces in Chechnya in 2022 and held in an illegal prison. After escaping from there, he managed to reach Kyrgyzstan in January 2023. In August 2023, security forces in Kyrgyzstan detained Movlaev, who was wanted in Russia for financing extremist activity. A court in Bishkek sentenced Movlaev to six months in prison and subsequent deportation from the country. On November 20, 2023, Movlaev was released, but the deportation order remained in effect, and he voluntarily left Kyrgyzstan to avoid being sent home.

In May 2025, Movlaev was detained in Kazakhstan and placed under extradition arrest. On January 30, it was reported that the Prosecutor General's Office of Kazakhstan had ordered his extradition to Russian security forces. His defense appealed this decision. In February, the Supreme Court of Kazakhstan suspended the execution of the decision to extradite Movlaev pending the final review of his asylum application. Human rights defenders and activists considered the connection between this decision and Movlaev's appeal to the UN Human Rights Committee, which in February called on the Kazakh authorities to suspend Movlaev's extradition pending the review of this appeal. On May 8, a court in Almaty extended the extradition arrest by two months, until July.

Caucasian Knot is posting materials about human rights violations in Chechnya, Kadyrov's attacks on the opposition, and his fight against dissent in the republic on a special thematic page, "Dissent in Chechnya".

* Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) is banned in Russia.