22:24, 11 May 2024

Message on behalf of abducted Krasnodar woman sparks distrust among Telegram users

A resident of Krasnodar, who suffered from violence. Screenshot of the post from the Telegram channel of the “Caucasus Without a Mother” human rights project https://t.me/heda_media/975

The text message posted on behalf of Maria Smelaya, a Krasnodar resident, that she had left for Moscow and was not abducted from a shelter by a native of Chechnya looks like a fake, Telegram users have pointed out.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 9, the human rights project "Caucasus without Mother" had informed that Maria Smelaya, who complained of violence from her husband, a native of Chechnya, stopped communicating after her husband and his accomplices had abducted her along with her child from the shelter.

On May 7, Maria Smelaya, 33, was placed in a shelter for women-victims of domestic violence located outside the Krasnodar Territory. Earlier, she asked human rights defenders to protect her from her husband, who, according to her story, beat her up, took her to the forest and threatened her with violence when she was pregnant with their son. The violence, according to her, began shortly after their trip to her husband's relatives in Grozny and their marriage.

The message on behalf of Maria Smelaya was posted on the "Krasnodar and Territory" Telegram channel.

"I had a quarrel with my husband and went to Moscow; and he took us away; what they write about us is slander," the message says.

Commentators have noted the abundance of spelling errors in well-known words and suggested that the message was written by a person with poor knowledge of the Russian language.

"Has she really written this of her own free will or under threats?" the user named Lina has asked, in particular. "Maybe it was her husband who has written this," she has added in another comment.

"Something prompts me that this was written by her husband, not her," the user WeiBi has noted.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 11, 2024 at 05:38 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot