Ex-moderators of a Chechen opposition chat were detained in Nizhny Novgorod and taken to Gudermes

In Nizhny Novgorod, police detained two moderators of the opposition chat Osal Nakh 95, Salekh Magamadov, and another young man. In 2020, they were tortured and forced to apologize for criticizing the Chechen authorities, after which the Russian LGBT Network helped them move from Chechnya to Nizhny Novgorod. This is reported by the Russian LGBT Network.

At about 3 pm on February 4, one of the young people called the coordinator of the emergency assistance program of the Russian LGBT Network. During the conversation, he heard screams. The lawyer of the organization Alexander Nemov, who arrived at the apartment, found traces of a search and a pogrom in it. Neighbors of the detainees said that they saw people in black uniforms at the entrance. According to them, they were OMON officers.

As Nemov told Mediazone, the police arrived at the apartment of the natives of Chechnya, the lawyer began to write a statement about the abduction. At that moment, “someone called” one of the security officials and said that Magamadov and Isaev were taken to the Gudermes police department. According to the lawyer, the arrest operation was carried out by the police from Gudermes together with the Nizhny Novgorod security forces.

A video of the apology of Magamadov and the Chechen youth in April 2020 was published in local telegram chats. According to the Russian LGBT Network, young people were forced to apologize by torture and humiliation.

news corrected

• Chechens are often forced to publicly apologize after asking for help from the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. In August 2019, the Caucasian Knot published an overview of such cases.
• In September 2019, in Chechnya, two young people were publicly reprimanded for comments on a social network, and earlier free performers were detained for inconsistency of their songs with the Chechen mentality. Three women were forced to apologize for contacting Ramzan Kadyrov.
• In 2016, a resident of the Chechen village Ramazan Jaladinov, who wrote a complaint to Vladimir Putin, apologized for this to the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov. Before that, Jaladinov's fellow villagers sent their apologies to Kadyrov .