"With cowards, I'm not on the way"

Elena Milashina: Why do I refuse the Franco-German Prize "For Human Rights"

Updated 11.04.2021

The police of the New Urengoy transferred the social activist Gadaev sent from France to the Chechen security forces

Today, Russian citizen Magomed Gadaev was deported the only flight from Paris to Moscow in Covid times. Today in the morning, when he arrived at the deportation prison in Paris to deliver to the airport, Magomed Gadaev opened his stomach in protest against the illegality of what was happening. The Court of Appeal in France canceled the decision on its deportation, but the employees of the French Ministry of Internal Affairs ignored the court decision. The disposed stomach of the deportation did not interfere: the flight with Gadaev on board flew out with a very small delay - 36 minutes.

At the moment, Gadaev is in the deportation sector of Sheremetyevo Airport. He was able to call his wife on the phone, which an outsider lent him for a call. In addition, there is no connection with Gadaev: during the deportation, people are selected from people, including a mobile phone.

Magomed Gadaev is 37 years old, of which he lived in France 11.

He left Russia in 2010, because in Chechnya he was kidnapped and kept on the basis of the Chechen riot police,

Which was then headed by Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechen security officer Alikhan Tsakaev (today the deputy chief of the Ministry of Emergencies in the Czech Republic). The Chechen riot police abducted Magomed Gadaev and, together with other illegally detained citizens of Russia, prepared “for the result”: they waited for the detainees to grow beards to take them to the mountains and shoot as militants. For this it was possible to get a reward from the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation or a monetary prize from the head of Chechnya.

Together with Magomed Gadaev, another Russian citizen - Islam Umarpashaev sat in a secret Chechen prison. He was abducted by the employees of the Chechen riot police at the end of December 2009 right from the house. His relatives turned to the human rights activists of the consolidated mobile group, which, after the murder of the Chechen human rights activist Natalya Estemirova, was created by the chairman of the public association “Committee against torture” Igor Kalyapin. It was thanks to the appeal of relatives to human rights activists Islam Umarpashaev was released, and with him a miracle got out of the Chechen secret prison and Magomed Gadaev. Both of them testified in the framework of the only criminal case against the Chechen police on the fact of abduction and torture, excited thanks to the efforts of the employees of the Committee against torture.

This case appeared, including due to the fact that the president has changed in Russia. I can’t say that Dmitry Medvedev was especially decisive against the Chechen security officials, but it was in those years that Russian human rights activists managed to at least somehow convey information about crazy arbitrariness in Chechnya that state agents create. When the president in Russia changed, the case of Islam Umarpashaev, actually brought to the stage of detention of the accused (the executioners were officially identified by their victims), fell apart.

The reason for the deportation of Magomed Gadayev from France to Chechnya (no one is looking for him in Russia, since there is no criminal case against Magomed Gadaev) is officially unknown. France also has no official criminal claims against him. There is only unofficial: possible participation in pimps. Such a claim, as we understand, is completely neutralized by the most important fear of the French in relation to the Russians of Chechen nationality: Gadaev certainly does not share the ideas of the “Islamic state” banned in Russia.

However, this is precisely with this fear that the French authorities are hiding today. The monstrous murder of the French teacher Samuel Pati, who in October last year, committed a refugee of Chechen nationality, who moved to France at the age of five, contributed to the resurrection of the sadly known principle when all Chechens are responsible for one. It was this principle that Stalin was guided in 1944, when he deported the entire Vainakh people to Kazakhstan steppes in winter.

Today, almost every week, deported Chechens are delivered from Paris to Moscow to Moscow.

At Sheremetyevo Airport, they, as a rule, disappear and appear in Chechnya already as accused in doubtful criminal cases, with grateful testimonies signed under torture about participation in illegal armed groups (which in Chechnya, according to Ramzan Kadyrov, have not existed for a long time).

And this is at best.

Some, like Ilyas Sadulaev , deported from France on March 12, and Lezi Artsuev , deported from France on April 5, generally disappeared.

In 2017, the Foreign Ministry of France and Germany (which has recently also not particularly ceremony with Russian citizens of Chechen nationality) awarded me a joint Franco-German award “For Human Rights and the Supreme of the Law”. They awarded me because I wrote about the representatives of the Chechen LGBT community, who began to pursue in Chechnya, as previously persecuted by drug addicts, Salafites, dissenters, critics of the Chechen government, and even earlier-suspected of terrorism.

For many years I wrote and write about this system of abductions, illegal deprivation of liberty in Chechen secret prisons, current torture, beatings, and rape of people in Chechnya. And when I was awarded (and personally awarded the ambassadors of France and Germany in Russia), I thought that the representatives of these great European countries at least read what I was writing.

But if it were so, then it was unlikely that all this would happen to Gadaev today. If the fate of the Chechen man was indeed important for the leaders of these states, the French cops would not spit on the decision of the French court, as if they were in Russia. And a Russian citizen would not have ripped his belly in a French deportation prison, as if he were in a Russian prison, where cut veins, sewn mouths and endless hunger strikes are in the order of things.

Today, after the ripped abdomen of Magomed Gadaev, I understand that in France the time of the rule of law has passed and the time has come and the rule of fear has come.

I could never work in Chechnya if I were afraid. With my underpants I am not on the way. And even more so, they do not reward me.

The official refusal of the Franco-German Prize “For Human Rights and the Supreme of the Law” and the Prize itself in its physical terms (medal) I will send a valuable bandir to the address of the French Embassy, ​​in which a ceremony was held in 2017.

Updated April 9, 23:00
The Russian refugee Magomed Gadaev is still deported in violation of the decision of the French court from Paris from Paris, in the Sheremetyevo Airport, in terminal D in the transit zone. It is not kept (since there are no legal grounds), but the border services of the FSB of the Russian Federation do not let go of the border services of the FSB.

To the question of the Novaya Gazeta, on what grounds Magomed Gadaev is limited in freedom of movement, and why for five hours a lawyer has not allowed him for five hours, an employee of the border service answered: because Magomed Gadaev does not have a Russian passport (he has only a temporary certificate issued in return for the lost passport by the Russian Embassy in France, and it is enough to certify personality).

In addition, the FSB border guards told Gadaev that "they have an agreement to send him at the place of residence to the Chechen Republic." With whom the FSB of the Russian Federation has “agreements” - with the authorities of France or with the authorities of the Chechen Republic - they refused to explain to us.

Magomed Gadaev told Novaya Gazeta that for several hours he was interviewed by different employees, as he understood, from the FSB of the Russian Federation. The questions concerned the reasons why he left Russia, and then was expelled from France.

Magomed Gadaev said that he does not have a certain place of residence in Chechnya (he has not lived in Russia for 11 years) and

He insisted: it is categorically impossible to deport him to the Chechen Republic only in the fact that he is a Chechen. He can be killed there.

Gadaev is a witness in a criminal case against the Chechen police under grave articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“The abduction of a person” and “Exceeding official powers”), which is still being investigated. His life is in real danger.

After polls, Magomed Gadaev is convinced, interest in him at the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation disappeared.

At the time when Novaya Gazeta managed to contact Magomed Gadaev, the lawyer Semyon Tsvetkov was not allowed to him. Seven and a half hours have passed from the moment of landing at the Sheremetyevo flight from Paris. Gadaev was not even given the opportunity to eat. In fact, he spent more than a day without food, which was fraught with consequences, given his condition after the wound (Gadaev revealed his stomach in the deportation prison of Paris, protesting against the illegal actions of the French police).

In the commentary of Novaya Gazeta, the situation with Magomed Gadaev, Oleg Orlov, the head of the Hot Pots program, the Memorial Human Rights program (the Ministry of Justice, considers the Center as a foreign agent - ed. ).

“This situation is completely unacceptable from the point of view of human rights. Moreover, from the point of view of both countries that dispose of the life of Gadaev. Firstly, from the part of France, which sent a refugee in violation of a court decision-to the country from which he fled because there was a threat of his life. That is

The French obviously knew that they were sending a person to extrajudicial reprisal .

On the other hand, the Russian Federation accepts its citizen, but obscure employees, obviously, the FSB, without introducing themselves, not allowing a lawyer, delay Gadaev and tell him that they have a certain agreement with “someone” to send to the Chechen Republic. And there, Chechen security officials go at large, against which Gadaev gave official testimonies as a witness. At the same time, a criminal case has not been instituted against Gadaev himself, he is not wanted. Nevertheless, he is kept on incomprehensible grounds in order to convey to those who are quite possible in his disappearance.

Both countries, in fact, maliciously violate human rights in this situation and, in my opinion, there is a conspiracy of the power structures of the two countries. Only one of these countries is Russia, and the other positions itself as a rule of law, is very proud of this and publicly contrasts itself in the capacity of such countries as ours. ”

At 22 o’clock on April 9, another lawyer Gadaev, Artem Nemov, applied to the prosecutor with a statement on a violation of Magomed Gadaev’s rights to defend and illegally deprivation of his liberty.