A criminal case was opened against Chechen human rights activist Abubakar Yangulbaev for “extremism”

A criminal case was opened against the Chechen human rights activist and ex-lawyer of the “Committee against Torture” Abubakar Yangulbaev "organizations of extremist activity" , reports the Baza telegram channel associated with the security forces. The reason for initiating the case is a video on the YouTube channel of the 1ADAT project banned in Russia and its personal Telegram channel.

“Baza” writes that the case was opened due to the human rights activist’s participation in live broadcasts of an opposition channel in August–September 2022.

In a conversation with DOXA, Abubakar explained that he gave 1ADAT an interview about his mother Zarema Musaeva in September 2022. He emphasized that otherwise he is in no way connected with the activities of the project, which is led by his brother Ibrahim.

Human rights activist

Abubakar Yangulbaev

“I have been involved in this activity, which can be called extremist, fakes, and foreign agency, for a very long time. Why only now, and why attach a completely different opposition channel there, just because my brother is there, although we do not run it together and did not create it together? […] I told the investigators about this when I was detained and searched on December 28, 2021. I quite formally said that I was not participating in this, and my explanations were accepted.”

Abubakar also said that the criminal case may be related to the launch of his new human rights project Kost , which talks about the suppression of indigenous peoples in Russia.

Human rights activist

Abubakar Yangulbaev

“We have already managed to file a statement about genocide, obtain the archive file, and sort it out. Show people how the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union and today the Russian Federation suppress indigenous peoples, depriving them of the possibility of political expression, and leading them to the point where they send them to either 20 years or execution.”

In his Telegram channel, Abubakar noted that he has not yet been put on the wanted list.

Earlier it was reported that the mother of Abubakar and Ibragim Yangulbayev, Zarema Musaeva, was hospitalized from the pre-trial detention center. It subsequently turned out that she was taken to the hospital for examination and returned to the isolation ward on the same day, despite serious deterioration in her health. Zarema Musayeva has been under arrest since February 2, 2022.

Persecution of Zarema Musaeva and her family

• Zarema Musaeva is the wife of former federal judge Saidi Yangulbaev. Their children, Ibragim and Abubakar Yangulbaev, are activists opposed to the regime of Ramzan Kadyrov. Ibrahim is the co-director of the protest telegram channel 1ADAT, and Abubakar is a human rights activist, a former lawyer for the human rights project “Committee against Torture.”

• In 2015, Musaeva’s sons Ibragim and Abubakar and their father Saidi Yangulbaev were tortured in Chechnya. At the end of December 2021, Abubakar Yangulbaev reported the abduction of more than twenty of his relatives.

• In January 2022, Musaeva was forcibly taken from Nizhny Novgorod, where she was hiding, to Chechnya, allegedly for interrogation in a fraud case in the status of a witness.

• In Grozny, Musaeva was sentenced to 15 days of arrest under the article of petty hooliganism.

• After that, she was accused of using violence against a police officer, and her procedural status in the fraud case was changed, making her an accused. On February 2, a court in Grozny arrested Musaeva, and since then she has been in a pre-trial detention center.

• Musaeva’s arrest was repeatedly extended , despite health problems - Zarema was diagnosed with diabetes. In August, the Leninsky District Court of Grozny refused to transfer Musaeva’s case to another region.

• On April 29, 2023, Zarema’s lawyers announced falsification of evidence in her case. According to them, a sample for examination of the material from under Musaeva’s nails, in which traces of the blood of the injured security forces were allegedly found, was obtained in violation of the criminal procedure law. The court rejected the request to exclude the research results from the case.