Rights defenders treat Amaev's disappearance as typical of Chechnya

The disappearance of Mairbek Amaev, a Grozny resident, cannot be unambiguously qualified as a kidnapping, but this incident is typical of Chechnya, the human rights defenders interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" have noted.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported with reference to Amaev's relatives that he disappeared at night on December 14 in the area of the former Old Marketplace. Instagram users have suggested that Amaev was detained by law enforcers, but the latter stated to his relatives that such person had not been brought to them.

On December 17, Dmitry Piskunov, the head of the North-Caucasian branch of the Committee against Torture (CaT), told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that Amaev's relatives had not turned to them.

According to his version, due to the absence of any information, "there is no clear evidence that the young man's disappearance was a kidnapping."

At the same time, Mr Piskunov has noted that this incident could be one of a number of similar ones that happened in Chechnya.

"There is one common, very common problem throughout the Chechen Republic. There are illegal detentions or, rather, kidnappings, because it is hardly possible treating such actions as detentions. These are in fact kidnappings. When a person is sometimes illegally kept in custody for months [...] in order to fabricate criminal cases against them during this time," Mr Piskunov has explained, adding that in Amaev's case this possibility is quite high.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 18, 2019 at 04:50 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.