The head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights (HRC), Valery Fadeev, said that weighty grounds are needed to accuse HRC member Igor Kalyapin of a particularly serious crime. The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, earlier called Mr Kalyapin and Novaya Gazeta journalist Yelena Milashina “terrorists” and called on law enforcement to detain them.
Mr. Fadeev said that Igor Kalyapin and the head of Chechnya have a “difficult relationship.” He drew attention to the fact that Mr. Kalyapin was appointed a member of the HRC by decree of the President of Russia, and such appointments “are necessarily accompanied by appropriate checks.” “We must always remain in the legal field and, presenting such serious accusations that the head of Chechnya spoke about … have the same serious evidence base,” the head of the HRC wrote in Telegram.
Ramzan Kadyrov claims that Igor Kalyapin and Yelena Milashina “make money on the topic of the Chechen Republic and Chechens, developing scripts and whispering texts and behavior into the ears of their characters.” He voiced his accusations against the background of the situation with retired judge of the Supreme Court of Chechnya Saidi Yangulbaev. His son Abubakar worked as a lawyer for the “Committee against Torture” founded by Mr. Kalyapin (KPP; the legal entity of the committee was declared a foreign agent in the Russian Federation, now the organization operates without a legal entity), and left Russia in December 2021 after being detained on a case of justifying terrorism.
Last week, Saydi Yangulbaev reported on the kidnapping of his wife Zarema Musayeva by Chechen security forces in Nizhny Novgorod. He connected this with the human rights activities of his son. The Kremlin called it a “fantastic story.” The Chechen authorities claim that the court arrested the ex-judge’s wife for insulting a police officer. Ramzan Kadyrov said that “this family is waiting for a place either in prison or underground.” He also threatened the judge’s relatives with “destruction”.
Read more about the situation in the publication “Kommersant”.