And again Kadyrov

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov intends to file a civil lawsuit against Novaya Gazeta for protection of honor, dignity and business reputation and compensation for moral damage. According to his lawyer Andrei Krasnenkov, Kadyrov is demanding a million rubles from the newspaper (one ruble from each issue) for the article “Vienna Murder” dated February 4, 2009 about the murder of former Chechen militant Umar Israilov, in which the Chechen leader may have been involved.

Novaya Gazeta has not yet received official notifications from Kadyrov. Earlier it was reported that Kadyrov filed an application with the Moscow Main Internal Affairs Directorate to initiate criminal proceedings against the newspaper’s journalists and its editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov in connection with the same article. The newspaper had already sued Kadyrov and even won in the court of first instance, but in the end the Moscow City Court overturned the decision, and Kadyrov won for the second time.

The main content of the unsigned article “The Vienna Murder” is a retelling of material collected by The New York Times journalist Christopher Chivers. The article also includes fragments of Israilov’s complaint to the European Court of Human Rights, where he mentions Kadyrov’s presence during interrogations and participation in beatings.

As for the application to initiate a criminal case against Muratov, according to Interfax, according to Krasnenkov, Kadyrov’s lawyer wrote a statement to the Moscow prosecutor’s office, in which he asked to find out whether any actions were being taken - otherwise there was no reaction.

Kadyrov has already managed to win a lawsuit against the head of the Memorial Human Rights Center Oleg Orlov and have a criminal case initiated against him due to the fact that Orlov accused Kadyrov of involvement in the murder of Natalya Estemirova.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch spoke out against the criminal prosecution of Orlov. Moscow office director Allison Gill said that “the freedom to criticize officials and even accuse them of wrongdoing is essential to both promoting public debate and holding officials accountable,” and “the threat of criminal sanctions to restrict free expression undermines the very essence of , which is a free society." The organization's statement emphasizes that Russia and Azerbaijan are the only countries included in the Council of Europe in which libel is considered a criminal offense. The organization calls on Russian authorities to allow Orlov's libel charges to distract them from the investigation into Estemirova's murder.

Consultations on human rights between Russia and the European Union are scheduled for November 5-6. Human Rights Watch calls on the EU to use them to put pressure on Russia to protect human rights defenders, as well as to obtain commitments from Russia to bring its libel laws into line with international obligations to protect freedom of speech.