Rights defenders comment on report about "exchange fund" of volunteers in Chechnya

In Chechnya, people are forced to sign contracts, while law enforcers may set up a so-called "exchange fund" of volunteers from other regions who have arrived in the republic and will sign contracts (with the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD)) instead of local residents, human rights defenders believe.

Svetlana Gannushkina*, the head of the "Civic Assistance" Committee*, did not rule out that law enforcers in Chechnya are systematically involved in the practice of forcing people to sign contracts with the MoD.

"This is done to provide more contract soldiers from Chechnya. Various methods are used, mostly illegal, of course: illegal detentions, falsification of criminal cases, threats and coercion ... If not for this, no sane person would go to the SMO zone on his own," she said.

Law enforcers have begun implementing Ramzan Kadyrov's threats to forcibly send young residents of Chechnya who used to commit violations and lead an "idle and immoral lifestyle" to the SMO zone, a human rights defender has noted.

Ruslan Kutaev, a political analyst, has noted, referring to sources that there are fewer and fewer volunteers in Chechnya willing to go to the SMO zone. He has added that there is a practice in Chechnya of forcing people to sign contracts with the MoD.

"There is information that recently they have started taking people to police stations with or without reason. They force their informants to write statements on people, even strangers, and under this pretext they detain people. Then relatives are offered an exchange for a volunteer. That is, relatives find a volunteer, pay him some money, and they set free their relative-victim in exchange. Law enforcers already have volunteers, and relatives sort of negotiate with them," another human rights defender has explained.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.