17:33, 20 November 2018

Titiev tells court about work of HRC "Memorial" in Chechnya

Oyub Titiev in the court, October 2018. Photo by Patimat Makhmudova for the Caucasian Knot

Today, the court continued interrogating Oyub Titiev; and his lawyer Ilya Novikov asked him to tell about cases of threats and pressure on employees of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial". "For 18 years, there have been many cases; I don't remember all of them," said Titiev.

In particular, he told about the attack on the Gudermes office of the HRC "Memorial", says the message posted on Telegram-channel of the HRC.

On January 14, 2015, five unidentified masked men broke into the office of the HRC "Memorial" in Gudermes and showered eggs on two women-employees of the office.

"There were two women there; they were bombarded with eggs in less than a minute. The police was informed: policemen came, looked around the place, collected egg shells and left. There is no result," said Oyub Titiev, adding that the office in Gudermes was closed several months later.

He explained that he associated the attack with the authorities' policy. "Ordinary people had no need of this [attack]; we had helped them for many years for free," explained Oyub Titiev, adding that earlier, people turned to HRC "Memorial" in hundreds; and only in the last 5-6 years, there were "significantly fewer appeals because of law enforcers' pressure."

"We rendered legal assistance before the trials free of charge; we accompanied cases at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). How many people had received help during this period? It's hard to say, thousands and thousands," said Oyub Titiev.

Let us remind you that Oyub Titiev, accused of marijuana possession, has been in custody since January 11. He pleads not guilty and claims that the drugs were planted on him.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 20, 2018 at 12:43 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.