{"id":6011,"date":"2022-01-01T09:22:56","date_gmt":"2022-01-01T09:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/nobody-canceled-blood-feuds-the-relatives-of-chechen-dissidents-are-being-kidnapped-both-in-chechnya-and-in-other-parts-of-russia.html"},"modified":"2022-01-01T09:22:56","modified_gmt":"2022-01-01T09:22:58","slug":"nobody-canceled-blood-feuds-the-relatives-of-chechen-dissidents-are-being-kidnapped-both-in-chechnya-and-in-other-parts-of-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/nobody-canceled-blood-feuds-the-relatives-of-chechen-dissidents-are-being-kidnapped-both-in-chechnya-and-in-other-parts-of-russia.html","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nobody canceled blood feuds\u2019 The relatives of Chechen dissidents are being kidnapped \u2014 both in Chechnya and in other parts of Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
Elena Afonina \/ TASS<\/figure>\n

In the final weeks of 2021, at least six Chechen oppositionists reported that their relatives had gone missing. All of these opposition figures live outside of Chechnya and have condemned regional head Ramzan Kadyrov and his cronies for human rights abuses. Several of them have faced threats in the past or even survived assassination attempts. Though their family members living in Chechnya have come under pressure before, they are now being abducted en masse \u2014 and not only in Chechnya, but also in other parts of Russia. Though some have been released, many remain missing at the time of this writing. For Meduza, journalist Vladimir Sevrinovsky spoke with three Chechen dissidents whose relatives were targeted in the latest wave of repression.<\/p>\n

The blogger<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov received political asylum in Sweden in October 2021. On December 21\u201322, he learned that nine of relatives in Chechnya had disappeared, he told Meduza. One of them, his cousin, was beaten up. Six others, who were subsequently released, weren\u2019t subjected to any violence, but had their passports confiscated \u2014 some of them had their cell phones taken away, too. Abdurakhmanov told Meduza that he still doesn\u2019t know who detained his relatives, but he was informed that four of them were held at a police station in Argun, a town in the Chechen Republic.<\/p>\n

According to the blogger, two days after the first round of disappearances \u2014 on the morning of December 24 \u2014 local police officers showed up at the home of his wife\u2019s mother and sisters in the city of Astrakhan. Under the pretext of investigating a criminal case, the officers took the blogger\u2019s sister-in-law, Asiyat Aybazova, to Astrakhan\u2019s Kirovsky Police Station. There, Aybazova was allegedly handed over to three men in civilian clothes, who put her in a car with Chechen plates and drove off to an unknown location. Around this time, Abdurakhmanov\u2019s mother-in-law went missing from her Astrakhan home. The whereabouts of both Asiyat Aybazova and her mother are still unknown. Relatives tried to call Aybazova\u2019s phone, but the number had been disconnected.<\/p>\n

The Interior Ministry\u2019s branch for the Astrakhan region didn\u2019t respond to Meduza\u2019s official request for comment on the arrest of Asiyat Aybazova and the legal grounds for her detention.<\/p>\n

Abdurakhmanov raised the alarm about threats against his family members back in September, when armed men delivered a warning about a blood feud to his relatives in Starye Atagi (a rural town in Chechnya). Abdurakhmanov connected the threats to the failed assassination attempts on him and his brother in February 2020 and March 2021, respectively. Earlier, in April 2019, the blogger\u2019s close relatives publicly disowned him, declaring that they would not seek revenge in the event of his death. According to Ruslan Kutayev, a well-known Chechen public figure, Abdurakhmanov\u2019s family members disowned him under pressure from the authorities.<\/p>\n

On December 23, 2021, Tumso Abdurakhmanov published a screenshot of an anonymous Telegram message threatening violence against his kidnapped family members unless he apologizes to Ramzan Kadyrov and stops releasing opposition videos. The blogger surmises that his released relatives will be forced to record videos condemning him.<\/p>\n