NGO activist persecuted in Chechnya

Unknown people opened fire on the house of Said-Emin Abubakarov (b. 1968) in the village of Gekhi, Chechnya's Urus-Martan district, on the night of May 26-27. Said-Emin Abubakarov actively cooperates with the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship. His house was seriously damaged as a result of fire. Fortunately, nobody was in the house at the moment of the attack. Abubakarov together with his wife and a six-month-old son was spending the night in the house of his relatives because he feared for the safety of himself and his family.

The fact of the matter is that Said-Emin was beaten by unknown gunmen in camouflage uniform in the street on May 23, 2004. The attackers arrived at the village in a Zhiguli car without number plates. Having beaten Abubakarov, the criminals escaped in the direction of the town of Urus-Martan. On May 24, unknown people came to Abubakarov's house in a car and said to his wife that "if he doesn't stop interfering in other's business, he will follow the Kunkayev family."

The strangers evidently meant Abubakarov's active cooperation with correspondents of the Information Center of the Society for Russian-Chechen Friendship and in particular his work to collect information about the murder of the Kunkayev family in the village of Gekhi on the night of April 1. Three suspects in this brutal murder were detained in a few days after the crime. They were local residents Magomed Kadiyev (b. 1973) and Sharpuddin Kadiyev (b. 1972) and a certain Eskarkhanov. While collecting information about the case, Abubakarov established that police officers applied different forms of violence to the detained men, including beating and torture, in order to make them confess the fact.

Said-Emin Abubakarov together with his family has to stay with his relatives now in order to be in more safety.