Ruslan Kutaev will remain part of the Russian platform at PACE

The head of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Petra Bair, proposed obliging members of the platform of Russian democratic forces at PACE to sign a declaration of commitment to the values ​​of the Council of Europe, including respect for diversity and equality. The issue of standards of conduct for platform participants will be considered at its next meeting. This is stated in the minutes of the meeting of the PACE Bureau, which took place last week, published on May 27. Journalist Alexander Plyushchev drew attention to this.

The document notes that, given the above, “at this stage” the composition of the platform will not be changed. This means that the Chechen oppositionist, president of the “Assembly of Peoples of the Caucasus” Ruslan Kutaev, who was previously temporarily suspended from working on the platform due to his statements about LGBT+ and so-called “honor killings,” will not be excluded from its membership.

A member of the platform of Russian democratic forces under the quota from indigenous peoples, former Deputy Prime Minister of the government of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Ruslan Kutaev, in an interview with the Ukrainian YouTube channel “Rizni People”, made several statements that, as his opponents note, are incompatible with democratic principles and the requirements of the rule of law. A month later, he repeated the same points in an interview with Alexander Plyushchev for his Breakfast Show channel. In particular, he said that he did not intend to deal with the problems of Chechen women who left the republic, and noted that LGBT representatives “offend” Chechens by their existence. Speaking about “honor killings,” Kutaev said that decisions about a person’s fate are made by the family.

After criticism from the media and human rights activists, Kutaev changed his rhetoric, giving a new interview to Plyushchev , as well as comments for the Novaya Gazeta Europe and the Main Program of the Present Time TV channel. He said his words had been misinterpreted because he was only describing how Chechen society works and noted that he was against any killing or violence.

At the end of April, PACE President Petra Bair suspended Kutaev's participation in the Russian platform, noting that the final decision should be made by the Assembly Bureau.

In addition to Kutaev, claims in connection with the statements were also made against another member of the platform, Mark Feigin. Also on the platform, Lyubov Sobol accused him of sexism and homophobia.

The PACE platform was created last December to establish a dialogue between the Council of Europe and representatives of Russian anti-war civil society. The condition for working on the platform was the signing of a declaration condemning the war and supporting Ukraine. 15 people were selected to join the platform, all of them live outside of Russia. A number of Russian oppositionists criticized the principles of forming the platform, in particular, FBK representatives do not participate in its work.

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