Team Against Torture lawyer Magomed Alamov is threatened with murder by the family of 27-year-old Marina Yandieva after he gave her a lift. The girl fled from home in Ingushetia from domestic violence. This is reported by the Team Against Torture.
On October 5, the SK SOS crisis group, which was helping Yandieva, asked Alamov to give her a ride. For security reasons, the girl’s name and details of the trip were not given to him.
Relatives initially reported the escaped woman as missing in a regional search. After Yandieva tried to withdraw from the wanted list at a police department in another region on October 19, they filed a theft report against her.
Back on October 11, Alamov received a call from the Center for Countering Extremism in Ingushetia and demanded to appear to talk about the disappearance of the girl. The lawyer was in another region and replied that he simply gave Yandieva a ride and was not aware of the situation. Three days later, Chechen police forcibly took his brother to Kadyrov’s regiment, where they threatened him and demanded that the human rights activist return to Chechnya.
On October 23, the girl called her family in order to resolve the conflict; the relatives handed the phone to Alamov, who had previously been brought to their home. “I’m at your home, surrounded by your relatives. My life and the lives of my relatives are under threat. They set a condition for me: one week for you to come home. If you don’t return within this week, they will kill me,” he told Yandieva. The SK SOS crisis group published excerpts of this conversation.
After the lawyer, the girl’s aunt, Zukhra Mestoeva, joined the conversation. “Let’s do it without consequences for people, without consequences for our family. Quietly, peacefully, let's let this man go. He has five children and a seriously ill father. Children as small as kittens. You’re a Muslim, you have a heart,” the woman turned to her escaped relative. “More than one person will be killed there...” - the conversation ends with these words.
According to the Team Against Torture, Marina Yandieva’s family are influential people in Ingushetia: the girl’s aunt, Zarema Antoshkieva, holds the position of acting. O. Minister of Health of the Republic, and my uncle works in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ingushetia.
According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, Marina Yandieva left to study in Moscow in 2011, four years later her relatives took her to an Islamic center near Moscow for exorcism rituals and forcibly took her home. In 2016, the girl tried to escape, but she was tracked down, beaten and returned home, they fabricated a certificate about her mental disorder and threatened her with honor killing. She was only allowed to leave the house in 2019; she had been preparing for her next escape for four years.
The anti-torture team appealed to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor's office with a demand to ensure the safety of Magomed Alamov and his family members. The SOS crisis group sent an appeal to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Russian Federation, Tatyana Moskalkova.
13:27 The head of the Team Against Torture, Sergei Babinets, clarified to Mediazona that Alamov is not being held by force, but he cannot leave because of fears for his relatives living in Chechnya.
“Even if Magomed leaves, his many relatives who are in the North Caucasus will be at risk,” explained Babinets. - And, in fact, based on the content of the audio recording that we all heard, claims will be made against them, and they will be at risk. Magomed Alamov, as a respectable family man and responsible citizen, cannot allow any of his relatives to suffer because of him. And that’s why he naturally doesn’t want to leave.”
He also confirmed that Alamov gave Yandieva a lift at the request of colleagues from the SK SOS Crisis Group , but knew nothing about who she was and why she was leaving.
On October 25 , Team Against Torture reports that Magomed Alamov is now at home with his family in Chechnya, and is not being detained. He continues to fear for the safety of his relatives.
“The SK SOS Crisis Group” also published a video of Marina Yandieva’s appeal , in which she said that after escaping from home, she contacted her relatives, who began threatening to kill Magomed Alamov and his family.