Law enforcers draw up protocol against rights defender for her comment on Suleimanova's case

Because of her comment on the case of Seda Suleimanova, an abducted Chechen woman, the administrative case against Ekaterina Neroznikova, a human rights defender, accused of collaborating with an undesirable organization, has been transferred to court.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that this April it became known that the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) was investigating Suleimanova's disappearance under the murder article. On April 26, 2024, an investigator in Chechnya interrogated Elena Patyaeva, a Suleimanova's friend. Later in June, Patyaeva stated that during three months investigators had failed to come to any conclusions, and the investigation was being sabotaged.

In August 2023, Seda Suleimanova was detained in Saint Petersburg and taken to Chechnya. After that, no messages were received from her. Her friends and human rights defenders fear that she has become the victim of an "honour killing." Ekaterina Neroznikova, a rights defender from the "Marem" group, told the "OVD-Info"* human rights project that the reason for the persecution was in her comment for the Radio Liberty (recognized as an undesirable organization in Russia), in which she spoke about the case of the abducted Suleimanova.

Ekaterina Neroznikova explained that she herself had left Russia after the start of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine, and last week her relatives were contacted by a man who introduced himself as a policeman. Later, he called Ekaterina herself and said that an administrative case had been opened against her and that a trial was soon to take place.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.