23:17, 9 April 2025

Court dismisses complaint of friend of missing Chechen woman Seda Suleimanova

Elena Patyaeva at a solo picket. Saint Petersburg, April 8, 2025. Screenshot of a video by the "Caucasian Knot"

The poster with which Elena Patyaeva went out to her solo picket demanding clarification of the fate of her friend Seda Suleimanova was treated by the appellate instance as a collapsible structure and upheld the decision on 20 hours of compulsory work.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the court found the solo picket held on a bridge in Saint Petersburg to be an unsanctioned public action. In order to justify the administrative prosecution of Elena Patyaeva, the court treated the poster she was holding as a collapsible structure, human rights defenders have explained.

On January 29, 2025, at the above picket, Elena Patyaeva stated that after 10 months the inquiry into Seda Suleimanova's disappearance had yielded no results. Law enforcers detained Elena, accusing her of organizing an unsanctioned public action.

"The trial went as expected – they’ve upheld the earlier ruling. We’ll appeal it to the next instance ... They’ve called my poster a ‘collapsible structure,’ Guys, it's just a piece of paper, what the hell kind of ‘structure’ is this?" Elena Patyaeva has asked in the Telegram channel "Where is Seda?".

On March 20, she again went out to a solo picket in Grozny with a poster reading: "Where is Seda?" The police detained her. Meanwhile, the police has called Suleimanova's fate a "family matter" and claimed that pickets were prohibited.

In April 2024, it became known that the ICRF was investigating Seda's disappearance under the murder article.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 8, 2025 at 01:23 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot