Members of one of the last human rights groups active in Chechnya said Sunday that their office has been torched after they criticized Chechnya's strongman for calling for collective punishment against families of Islamist insurgents.The attack on the Joint Mobile Group office in Grozny followed arson attacks against eight homes linked to insurgents' families following a surprise raid by gunmen on the Chechen capital.
Rights activist Dmitry Utukin said, "The damage (to the offices) is serious. All the equipment has been smashed. That was caused not by the fire but by vandalism."
Igor Kalyapin, head of the Moscow-based Committee Against Torture, said in a post on Facebook that two men had tried to break in before the fire at the Joint Mobile Group's offices. Activists had also been followed by armed men, he said.
At a news conference in Moscow on Thursday to condemn the attacks, two young men threw eggs at Kalyapin and Alexander Cherkasov of Memorial. Kadyrov responded on Instagram last week that Kalyapin and other activists are defending "bandits" and suggested that Kalyapin was being used by "Western special services" to pay insurgents.
On Saturday at a mass rally in Grozny, protesters held signs with slogans such as "Kalyapin go home" and "Kadyrov, defend us from rights activists paid with dollars".