After Ramzan Kadyrov posted video of his son beating detainee, human rights advocate Eva Merkacheva demands action from Russia’s justice system

After the Chechen Governor Ramzan Kadyrov posted a video of his 15-year-old son Adam brutally assaulting a defenseless detainee, the human rights advocate Eva Merkacheva announced that she will demand an appropriate response to the incident from the Russian authorities.

Merkacheva describes the situation documented in Kadyrov’s footage as a “challenge to the entirety of Russia’s legal system.” The person being beaten in the video by Kadyrov’s teenage son is Nikita Zhuravel, a Volgograd resident currently awaiting trial in Chechnya for burning a Quran in front of a Volgograd mosque.

Merkacheva, a member of Russia’s Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, plans to file a query with the Russian law enforcement in connection with the incident.

In his post, Kadyrov praised his son and said he was proud of him. Merkacheva, on the other hand, believes that the footage amounts to clear-cut “evidence of a crime.” “No one is disputing this fact,” she said, adding that prosecutors must take urgent measures, since the Chechen authorities are brandishing their ability to “commit crimes with impunity.”

“I’m concerned that the next piece of news we hear might be that Nikita Zhuravel has been found dead in his cell,” the advocate remarked, insisting that Zhuravel should be removed from Chechnya.

Nikita Zhuravel was arrested in May 2023. The prosecution claims that he burned a Quran in return for payment from the Ukrainian secret services. The alleged desecration took place in front of a mosque in Volgograd. Later, Zhuravel reportedly forwarded a video of his actions to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

After his arrest, Zhuravel was sent to a Chechen jail. The Russian authorities explained that this was because numerous Chechen Muslims had asked to be considered the victims of Zhuravel’s alleged crime.

In mid-August, Zhuravel said that the governor’s son had beaten him in jail. The Chechen authorities did not deny this.