Political analysts: residents of Chechnya tired of "leaderism" and criticize authorities

When residents of Chechnya dare to voice public appeals with criticism of the authorities or complaints, they are driven by despair and a desire to achieve justice. Exposing themselves at risk, authors of such appeals often underestimate the experience of other critics of the authorities, experts believe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 5 and 6, a woman, who called herself a resident of Chechnya, recorded video appeals to Ramzan Kadyrov and his mother Aimani Kadyrova with the demand to stop kidnappings and persecution of people in the republic.

Professor Alexei Malashenko, an expert from the Carnegie Foundation, believes video appeals of Chechen residents with criticism of the authorities and reaction to them demonstrate the severity of the persecution of dissidents in the republic.

New technologies allow a large number of people to write a video appeal to anyone, but most of those videos do not find spectators and cannot affect public opinion, believes sociologist Denis Volkov, the chief for the development unit of the "Levada Centre". Meanwhile, he notes that for the media, a video appeal can be additional evidence of human rights violations in the republic.

A protest against the injustice of power is laid in the foundations of the Caucasian society, believes Alikber Alikberov, Deputy Director for Science at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).

Djambulat Umarov, Chechen Minister of Information and National Policy, has suggested that Ramzan Kadyrov is aware of the appeal, but assured that the leader of Chechnya "has no intention to find" the woman who recorded the above appeal.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.