Report about apologies for fundraising indicates charity monopolization in Chechnya

The official's participation in the report criticizing a resident of Chechnya for raising money for treating her child indicates the intention of regional authorities to monopolize charity activities, human rights defenders assert. Requests to help a sick child always find sympathy among Chechens.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 17, on air of the "Grozny" TV Channel, the head of the Gudermes District rebuked the local woman who had raised, through a social network, 190,000 roubles, apart from 30,000 roubles, received from the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation, for a surgery her child needed as she thought.

Chechen authorities are trying to control the entire charitable sphere, Mikhail Roschin, an Orientalist, has suggested. In his opinion, stories with condemnation of help seekers will lead to the fact that people will stop asking for help in a difficult situation.

In any totalitarian society, the authorities react negatively to people's personal attempts to seek help from their fellow citizens, said Svetlana Gannushkina, the chair of the "Civil Assistance" Committee.

"They want all the benefits to come from their hands ... 'I punish and I give' – that's their logic," she has explained. In her opinion, people have the right to choose a fundraising method.

In Chechnya, asking for alms is a humiliating and rebuked behaviour, Aset Malsagova, a rights defender, believes.

Now, a request for help to treat a sick child is no longer considered a disgrace, said Ruslan Kutaev, the President of the Assembly of Caucasian Nations. In his opinion, the husband's brother had to apologize because he was the most authoritative person in this family.