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January 10th, 2018 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Tuesday morning authorities in the Russian Federation’s, Chechen Republic arrested human rights activist Oyub Titiev, who works as the Chechnya office director at the leading Russian rights group, Memorial Human Rights Center. Memorial has its main office in the Russian capital Moscow. Memorial is one of the oldest, well-established and active human rights organization in the Russian Federation.
Oyub Titiev, photo provided by Memorial Human Rights Center.
Oyub Titiev, born in 1957, took over for the Memorial Human Rights Center in Chechnya. Titiev took the helm for Memorial in Chechnya after the kidnapping and murder of his colleague Natalia Estemirova in 2009. In recent years, Titiev reportedly received many threats aimed at making him quit human rights work. Colleagues at Memorial as well as international rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, expressed fears that Oyub Titiev’s life and safety are in jeopardy after his arrest. Seven hours after his arrest Tuesday, Chechnya’s Interior Ministry confirmed they took him into custody, allegedly on suspicion of a drug-related crime.
At about 10:30 a.m. a witness reportedly saw five to six police officials stop and search Titiev’s car by the Khumyk river bridge, not far from the town of Kurchaloi. The officials then took Titiev to the Kurchaloi district police department. When a lawyer from Memorial arrived at the police department that afternoon, an officer reportedly refused to let him in, claiming Titiev wasn’t on the premises.
Another police officer, however, reportedly admitted off the record that they had Titiev in custody. At about 5 p.m., Chechnya’s Deputy Interior Minister informed Russia’s federal ombudsperson, in response to her inquiry, that Kurchaoi police had detained Titiev. Around that time, Titiev’s lawyer was admitted to the station, and local police told him his client was being charged with unlawful drug possession.
Rights organizations report consistently that framing people for drug crimes has become an increasingly frequent tactic used by Chechnya’s authorities to punish and discredit their critics in the eyes of conservative Chechen society. Human Rights Watch reports that in summer 2014, a court in Chechnya sentenced local activist Ruslan Kutaev to four years in jail on fabricated, politically motivated drug charges after he criticized and disobeyed an order by Chechnya’s leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. In fall 2016, another Chechen court sentenced journalist Zhalaudi Geriev to three years in prison on similarly fraudulent drug charges. Geriev worked for the Caucasian Knot, a Russian media portal which was critical of Chechnya’s leadership and had covered Kutaev’s case. Both men were tortured in police custody. Kutaev was released on parole at the end of 2017. Geriev remains behind bars.
The regime of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is notoriously known for publicly smearing activists, proviking attacks and harassment by local security officials and “pro-government thugs”. Titiev’s colleagues at Memorial and activists at HRW report that “there is no doubt that Titiev’s arrest is an attempt to finally push Memorial – which has been extensively reporting on collective punishment practices, enforced disappearances, torture, punitive house burnings, and other abuses by local authorities – out of Chechnya.
Police reportedly found 180 gram s of Marijuana in Titiev’s car during a traffic stop. 180 grams of marijuana is a relatively small amount. The arrest of Titiev on drug charges casts new light on the Rssian Federation’s in the eyes of most experts “senseless war on drugs”. In 2006, Russia reduced the limits for criminal possession of many drugs, with the criminal threshold for cannabis being reduced from 20 to 6 grams for cannabis, and 5 to 2 grams for hashish.
CH/L – nsnbc 10.01.2018
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2018/01/10/human-rights-activist-arrested-in-chechnya-on-drug-charges/
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