Yesterday the lawyers of the Joint Mobile Group of the human rights defenders working in the Chechen Republic, applied to the Ministry of Interior of Russia and the Chechen Republic with crime reports  – human rights defenders request the security agencies to perform a check based on the fact of their office’s arson, as well as on facts of their stalking by unidentified persons in masks and a visit of three of them to the office.  All the events happened on one day, 13 December 2014, and human rights defenders think they are not accidental. 

(Sergey Babinets and Dmitry Dmitriyev)

Sergey Babinets and Dmitry Dmitriyev also applied to the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Chechen Republic with a crime report based on illegal actions of the police officers who on 14 December within several hours held back the lawyers in their rented apartment and expropriated all of their equipment. Apart from that the human rights defenders applied with a request to perform an agency check with regards to the investigator who arrived at the rented apartment on that day and did not react to illegal actions of the police officers.   

It is worth noting that today the officers of the Investigative Committee first declined to accept the crime report, and after they did accept, refused to issue the notification check, emphasizing that «registration of a crime report is conducted only upon authorization of the person in charge». More than an hour’s waiting for some person in charge was in vain.  

After that the human rights defenders applied to the Procesutor’s Office and without a delay submitted a complaint requesting to perform a check of illegal actions of the police officers on 14 December 2014 as well as of inaction of the Investigative Committee investigator, who did not stop this action on the same day.  

A more detailed chronology of the events that are unfolding around the human rights defenders of the Joint Mobile Group can be found in the blog of Igor Kalyapin on the web site of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.