Salman Tepsurkaev's relative reports threats from supporters of Chechen authorities

Amid the public outcry around a video depicting the Salman Tepsurkaev's humiliation, supporters of the Chechen authorities demanded from relatives of the young man not to address the law enforcement bodies and threatened them with problems, one of Salman Tepsurkaev's relatives told human rights defenders and administrators of the "1ADAT" Telegram channel.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 7-8 in Chechnya, and then beyond its borders, the video, in which a naked man sits on a bottle, explaining that he is doing this as punishment for cooperating with the oppositional 1ADAT Telegram Channel, has caused huge resonance. The channel's authors are sure that the moderator of their chat, Salman Tepsurkaev, was kidnapped and publicly humiliated by law enforcers.

On September 14, an administrator of the "1ADAT" Telegram channel informed the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the relatives of Salman Tepsurkaev faced threats from supporters of the Chechen authorities. "Kadyrov's people did not at all expect such a development of events that we have at the moment. It is for the above reason that they did not even think about the Salman's relatives, since, being confident of their impunity, they were entirely focused on Salman. However, from the moment everything went in contradiction to their scenario, they realized the situation and immediately began to treat the Salman's relatives in their usual manner. According to our information, all of the Salman's relatives, including his father, were subjected to threats and blackmail," the administrator of the "1ADAT" Telegram channel said.

According to one of the "1ADAT" Telegram channel's administrators, the relatives of Salman Tepsurkaev were ordered not to go anywhere. They were also instructed to do and say whatever they were ordered to, "or they would have problems." However, according to the "1ADAT" Telegram channel's administrator, one of the Salman Tepsurkaev's relatives has not been frightened and is ready to file a complaint to the police.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 15, 2020 at 11:32 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.