Chechen police arrest 30-40 people following attack on human rights group

2:26 pm, June 3, 2015

Police in Chechnya say they have detained more than 30 people in connection with the attack earlier today on the Grozny office of the human rights group Committee Against Torture.

According to the group, several masked young men vandalized its company car and broke into its office apartment. The staff present say they had to escape through the window.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has speculated that the attackers were relatives of Dzhambulat Dadayev, the man recently killed by Stavropol police in Grozny, in a special operation that Kadyrov denounced as an infringement on Chechen autonomy. “Why haven’t the representatives of the Committee managed to investigate Dadayev’s murder, if it’s their job to fight torture by law enforcement officials?” Kadyrov asked reporters.

A spokesperson for the Investigative Committee told our staff that more than 40 people have been detained already. (Yes, it remains unclear where and how these men were apprehended, and no one at the scene witnessed any arrests.) Those detained include both suspects and witnesses. Police have asked us not to enter the [vandalized] apartment, asking us to “let them work.” They’ve said we’ll be allowed access after they’ve finished. We did manage to film part of [the Committee Against Torture’s] apartment.

Human Rights Center Memorial

In December 2014, head of the Committee Against Torture Igor Kalyapin filed a complaint against Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov to the Investigative Committee of Russia and to the Prosecutor General. Shortly after the complaints were filed, the Grozny office of the Committee Against Torture was set on fire. The office is located in a residential building in an apartment. The day after the arson incident, two of the NGO’s lawyers were taken to a police station “for identification purposes,” and police confiscated the group’s office equipment (computers and fax machines).

For more on Ramzan Kadyrov's conflict with Russian police, see: ‘If they come round, shoot to kill’: Ramzan Kadyrov bans Russian forces from carrying out special operations in Chechnya