2 June 2012 

Committee Against Torture 

On 1 June in Grozny, in Skver Zhurnalistov (Journalists’ Park) there was a picket devoted to the problem of enforced disappearance of Chechen residents. The action was organized by human rights NGO “Materinskaya Trevoga” (Mother’s Anxiety). Besides human rights defenders, among the participants there were relatives of people subjected to enforced disappearance. The picket was aimed at attracting attention to the problem of enforced disappearances. Lawyers of the Joint Mobile Group of Russian human rights organizations (JMG) which has been permanently working in Chechnya since 2009 also joined the picket. As for officials, the event was attended by Magomed Daudov, head of the Chechen President’s Office and Government, and Muslim Khuchiyev, Grozny Mayor. Having talked to picket participants, the latter noticed JMG lawyers and asked them to come up and tell him who they were and where they came from. [...] After a short conversation Khuchiyev invited the JMG to the Grozny Mayor’s Office “to get to know each other better and have a more specific talk”. The talk appeared to be a meeting with quite a number of participants, with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, Head of the Chechen President’s Office and Government Magomed Daudov, Grozny Mayor Muslim Khuchiyev, Head of the Chechen Investigative Administration under the Russian Investigative Committee Viktor Ledenyov, Chechen Prosecutor Mikhail Savchin, Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov and other high-standing officials among them. Workers of Materinskaya Trevoga and mothers whose children had disappeared were also present in the meeting. [Read more]