The ECHR communicated complaints from relatives of abducted residents of Moscow and Dagestan

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has communicated complaints from relatives of abducted and disappeared residents of Dagestan and Moscow, according to the website of the Memorial human rights center.

As human rights activists write, eight complaints were combined into one case. All of them concern the disappearances of kidnapped or detained Russians.

Thus, the complaint “Valibagandov against Russia,” which human rights activists filed in 2016, concerns the disappearance of Makhachkala resident Omar Valibagandov in 2013.

According to the applicant, the brother of the abducted person, the Russian authorities in the case violated Article 2 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the right to life), as well as Articles 3 and 5, guaranteeing the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment and the right to an effective remedy.

In the complaint Saidova v. Russia, the applicant reports that her son Salikh Saidov was arrested in Moscow in 2005 on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities. After that, he was taken to the department for combating organized crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan in Makhachkala, and then to the Grozny ORB-2 (operational search bureau - MZ). After this, Salih disappeared.

In this regard, the Strasbourg court asked the Russian authorities several questions: whether the applicants provided sufficient evidence that the missing persons were detained by state representatives; can the government deny the involvement of government officials in the disappearances of citizens and provide relevant documents; whether the right to life of the missing was violated and other issues.

The Russian government must respond to the ECHR by September 17, 2018, and also provide all documents that relate to the applicants’ cases and can confirm the authorities’ version.