18 March 2021, 13:54
"Novaya Gazeta" reacts to claims of residents of Chechnya
The journalists of the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper are ready to stop working if this is guaranteed by the cessation of human rights violations in Chechnya, the newspaper's press service reported in response to the demands of the rally participants in Chechnya to close the edition.
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on March 17, at a rally in Grozny, relatives of servicemen of the Akhmat Kadyrov Special Police Regiment accused the journalist, Elena Milashina, of provocations. Any criticism against Ramzan Kadyrov or law enforcers in Chechnya is equal to criticism against all Chechens, the head of the Public Chamber of Chechnya announced at the rally. Fighters from the above regiment are being forced to have one of them "take responsibility for stopping the insults of the whole personnel," said one of Chechen law enforcers.
On February 15, the newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" made public copies of the photo tables prepared by the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). The tables contained the information concerning the detention of 108 people, some of whom fell victim to extrajudicial killings in 2017. The newspaper also released a testimony of Chechen law enforcer Suleiman Gezmakhmaev. According to his story, residents of Chechnya, detained in January 2017, were tortured and forced to incriminate themselves before the extrajudicial killings, and the law enforcer witnessed those events.
For the first time, Chechen authorities have demanded to close the "Novaya Gazeta", although earlier a rally was held in Grozny, where the participants demanded apologies from the newspaper for its materials on extrajudicial executions in the region, said Nadezhda Prusenkova, the head of the "Novaya Gazeta" press service. "If with the closure of the 'Novaya Gazeta' Chechnya stops extrajudicial executions, killings of gays and political killings as such altogether, then we'll close the newspaper right tomorrow," the "Dozhd" TV Channel quotes Ms Prusenkova as saying on its website today.
The "Novaya Gazeta" staff is waiting for the Kremlin's reaction to the demand to close the newspaper, said Kirill Martynov, editor of the policy department of the "Novaya Gazeta".
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 18, 2021 at 10:24 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
