Zarifa Sautieva's arrest extended despite guarantees of human rights defenders

In the Stavropol Territory, the court extended the detention of Ingush activist Zarifa Sautieva until June 25. Meanwhile, human rights defenders, including Nikolai Rybakov, the leader of the "Yabloko" Party, Alexander Cherkasov, the head of the Council of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", and Svetlana Gannushkina and Oleg Orlov, members of the "Memorial", requested the court to release Zarifa Sautieva.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Zarifa Sautieva is under arrest since July 2019. She and four other activists were accused of participating in an extremist community. Zarifa Sautieva is also accused of organizing the use of violence dangerous to the life or health of public officers during protests in Magas on March 26-27, 2019.

Today, the Yessentuki City Court has extended the arrest of Zarifa Sautieva for other two weeks, that is, until the completion of the investigative actions.

Bilan Dzugaev, an advocate of Zarifa Sautieva, has added to the materials of his client's case the new guarantees from the human rights defenders, including Nikolai Rybakov, the leader of the "Yabloko" Party, Alexander Cherkasov, the head of the Council of the HRC "Memorial", Svetlana Gannushkina, the chair of the "Civic Assistance Committee", and Oleg Orlov, the leader of the "Hot Spots" programme of the "Memorial", the HRC "Memorial" reports on its website.

The investigator has explained his request to the court to extend the arrest of Zarifa Sautieva by the need to secure that the defendant could examine the case materials. The investigator has also suggested that while being at liberty, Zarifa Sautieva will try to hide from the investigation and put pressure on witnesses.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 9, 2020 at 02:00 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.