A human rights activist appealed the refusal to initiate a case in connection with the attack on him

Igor Kalyapin, chairman of the "Committee against Torture", appealed for the eighth time against the refusal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to open a criminal case based on the attack on him in Grozny on March 16, 2016. This was reported on the website of the Committee against Torture.

On March 16, the director of the hotel, accompanied by police officers, entered Kalyapin's room at the Grozny City Hotel and demanded that the human rights activist leave the hotel territory - due to the fact that Kalyapin criticized Ramzan Kadyrov. At the exit from the hotel, Kalyapin was attacked by a dozen and a half people in masks - they threw green paint, cakes, eggs and flour at him, hit him several times and ran away.

The “Committee Against Torture” believes that the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs did not take the necessary actions: they did not interview the journalists who were eyewitnesses of the attack, as well as other witnesses of the incident, they did not identify the man who introduced himself as the director of the hotel, they did not identify and did not interview the police who served nearby.

For several reasons, we cannot agree with the opinion of investigators who do not want to qualify the attack on Igor Kalyapin under the article "Hooliganism": firstly, the clearly planned and organized actions of unknown persons committed in a public place with a large crowd of people, of course, violated public order and expressed clear disrespect for society; secondly, the attack was committed on a public figure motivated by ideological hatred, as evidenced by the cries of the attackers that “Kalyapin is protecting terrorists

Timur Rakhmatulin, lawyer of the Committee against Torture, commented on the situation

At the end of 2014, Kadyrov's fans threw eggs at Kalyapin during a press conference in Moscow. In June 2015, the office of the Free Mobile Group “Committee against Torture” in Chechnya was attacked, unknown people broke into the office of the organization and destroyed office equipment. In March 2016, a minibus with journalists and human rights activists, among whom were employees of the “Committee against Torture”, heading to Chechnya, was attacked on the border with Ingushetia. People were pulled out of the car and beaten, the car was set on fire.