Lawyers admit that videoed Chechen Tepsurkaev could be raped and tortured

In case of a forced coercion of Salman Tepsurkaev, a resident of Chechnya, to record the video where he sits on a bottle, a criminal case of raping should be initiated, Evgeny Chernousov, an advocate, believes. The Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" treats this case as humiliation and torture.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the above video, in which a naked man sits on a bottle, claiming that he did it as a punishment for his cooperating with the Telegram channel that criticized Chechen authorities, caused resonance in Chechnya. The authors of the 1ADAT channel stated that the moderator of their chat was kidnapped and publicly humiliated by law enforcers.

Svetlana Gannushkina, the chair of the "Civil Assistance" Committee, is sure that Tepsurkaev mutilated himself under threats of execution, as no person will voluntarily abuse himself.

In practice, it is extremely difficult to prove that a person was forced to mutilate himself, said Evgeny Chernousov, an advocate.

The "Committee against Torture" (CaT) has contacted Tepsurkaev's relatives; a meeting with them will take place on September 10, said Dmitry Piskunov, the chairman of the CaT's North-Caucasian Branch. In his opinion, "no sane person will injure and humiliate himself in front of the entire Chechen people to the camera."

Let us remind you that Tepsurkaev stated that he had recorded the above video, where he sits on a bottle, because he was threatened with death for insulting Chechen law enforcers in the 1ADAT Telegram channel. The channel's authors have objected that they had not admitted any offensive publications, and linked Tepsurkaev's statements with Chechen authorities' propaganda.