Chechen officials file new charges against jailed mother of exiled opposition activists

The Chechen authorities have filed new charges against Zarema Musaeva, the 55-year-old mother of two exiled opposition activists who is already serving a five-year prison sentence on spurious charges.

Musaeva, who has type 2 diabetes, now faces up to five more years behind bars for allegedly disrupting the work of a prison, according to the Committee Against Torture human rights group. The details of the case remain unclear.

In late October, human rights activists warned that prison officials were planning to fabricate new charges against Musayeva after she was interrogated about a supposed “attack” against a Federal Penitentiary Service officer.

In early 2022, Chechen security forces abducted Musaeva in Nizhny Novogorod and took her to Chechnya’s capital, Grozny, where they imprisoned her for allegedly “resisting police.” She was illegally held in custody until the summer of 2023, when she was sentenced to 5.5 years on charges of fraud and violence against police. The sentence was later reduced on appeal to five years.