Murder and mayhem thrive under brutal rule of Chechen warlord

When Chechnya's strongman ruler Ramzan Kadyrov ordered his security forces last week to open fire on any Russian policeman who appeared on his territory without prior approval, he openly stated a rule that many of his subjects have suffered under for several years: inside the North Caucasus republic, he, and he alone, is master.

Even though war officially ended six years ago, the Chechen republic continues to be one of the most violent places in Russia.

Local residents and human rights advocates accuse the former warlord of imposing a brutal rule. There are frequent disappearances and killings and no avenues for redress. "This is a kind of island which lies outside of the reach of Russian law. It will be done as Kadyrov or those close to him say," says a Chechen human rights activist who asked to remain anonymous because his group has been the target of attacks. He added that Russian president Vladimir Putin had "given our republic as a fiefdom to Ramzan. He is now the only lord and father. He submits to nobody but Putin, and Putin doesn't want chaos here."

The conflict in Chechnya began when the republic tried to secede from Russia after the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. Over the course of two brutal wars which ended with the suppression of this secessionist cause, the insurgency has morphed into a jihadist uprising and spread all over the North Caucasus.

Since a group of Islamist insurgents launched an armed attack in downtown Grozny last December, the regime is cracking down even harder. In the Naursky district north of Grozny, seven young men were abducted in December. Family members of two of them say they know who took them and which police station they were taken to, but their lawyer was told that they had been taken elsewhere. Several more disappeared from Groznensky, a rural district surrounding the regional capital. They have yet to be found.

<

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

The police have also gone after anyone whose contact was found on the phones of the alleged suicide bombers. Five are still unaccounted for, and two died while under arrest. They were buried in secret and their families have been forbidden from talking about their deaths. But according to local human rights workers, the two died from torture during questioning.

"Kadyrov has total carte blanche to do inside the republic whatever he wants. Everything is allowed," says Sergei Babinets, a member of a joint mobile group of Russian human rights organisations which rotates activists through Chechnya. "If he wants to burn houses, he burns houses. If he wants to conduct mass cleansings, he conducts mass cleansings. If he wants to kill someone, he kills someone."

Those who speak up almost always pay a high price. After the Joint Mobile Group criticised violence against the families of suspected insurgents, their office in Grozny was torched. A month later, masked men stormed the office of Memorial, another rights group in the Chechen town of Gudermes and intimidated staff there.

The climate of fear further undermines the constitutional and legal institutions of the Russian state in Chechnya.

"There is a huge number of torture cases where people know who took the victim away and where the victim is being held. But the investigator in charge of the case does not call the perpetrators for questioning, does not detain them, and does not pass the case on to the prosecution. Judges never call these perpetrators as witnesses," says Mr Babinets. "They have told us directly: if I call this [policeman] for questioning today, they'll come for me tomorrow. The judges, prosecutors, investigators are just afraid."

According to Mr Babinets, not a single case of torture or abduction on which his group filed a complaint has been taken up by a Chechen court since the group started work in 2009.

The dysfunctionality of the legal system has encouraged many Chechens to seek help abroad. There is a rising tide of complaints about torture and disappearances to the European Court of Human Rights. While the court often struggles to find enough evidence of torture, it has awarded damages to Chechens whose family members disappeared in the hands of the security apparatus.

In this context, Moscow tidies up after Mr Kadyrov.

Mr Babinets says the fines included in the Strasbourg court's rulings against the Grozny authorities are always paid - by the federal government in Moscow. "But the remaining parts of the verdicts, which often call for a proper investigation, are never implemented," he adds.

Increasingly Chechens consider emigration. The republic records a net outflow of its people, according to official migration statistics, which are believed to under-report outward migration. Those who fear the Chechen authorities try to leave Russia altogether because they don't feel safe in Moscow either.

There are no reliable statistics on how many have left, but a Chechen refugee wave that hit Germany in 2013 is seen by most experts as a good indicator. Berlin received more than 15,000 applications for political asylum from Russia that year, more than four times the amount a year earlier. According to German officials, more than 90 per cent were from Chechnya.

"Of course we want to live where our ancestors lived, and die where our ancestors died," says one man from the Chechen village of Alkhazurovo who applied for foreign passports for his entire family last year. "But there is a point where it is better to leave."

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation