Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov, at a meeting with senior law enforcement and special services officers stated that reports about violations of human rights in Chechnya are “information attacks” launched by western countries, as reported on the Chechen government website.

In particular, Kadyrov said that despite the fact that “Chechnya is barely visible on a map” it frequently comes up as the center of attention of “western states and their minions in our country.” Kadyrov refuted “all allegations about flagrant violations of human rights in our republic that we constantly see in the press,” denouncing them as fake.

Moreover, Kadyrov said that in the western world “there were even more crimes against human rights than in our country,” which led him to believe that western states “were doing it on purpose to sow chaos in Chechnya, with the ultimate goal being to weaken Russia.” The Chechen leader then mentioned the Middle East countries that “had been plunged into violence, poverty, where blood of innocent people was shed” as an example of the treacherous West executing countries it did not like.

Kadyrov praised Chechnya as one of “the most peaceful and prosperous areas in the world” and concluded that “nobody holds the interests of the Chechen people and their rights more closely to the heart than the leadership of the Chechnya Republic.”

In late December, Ramzan Kadyrov was placed on the sanctions list under the Magnitsky Act by the United States for torturing and killing citizens and other violations of human rights in the Chechen Republic. The sanctions freeze assets held in the U.S. and ban sanctioned individuals from entering the U.S. Besides Kadyrov, the head of the District Department of the Interior in Argun is also on the sanctions list under the Magnitsky list as he is accused by American authorities of torturing Chechen gay people.

  Kadyrov, Chechnya, Magnitsky List, Russia

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