Chechen leader blaclisted by United States
Ramzan Kadyrov has been President Putin’s poster boy for the integration of Chechen Republic with the Russian Federation.
By IAR Desk
The U.S. State Department has placed Chechen Republic leader Ramzan Kadyrov on its blacklist of human rights violators Monday for alleged torture, extrajudicial killings and other violations it said go back more than a decade. The department said Kadyrov, his spouse Medni Kadyrova, and his daughters Aishat Kadyrova and Karina Kadyrova, were designated under its Section 7031(c) sanctions, which bans them from traveling to the United States, reported the Associated Press (AP).
The report also cited a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating “This designation is due to Kadyrov’s involvement in gross violations of human rights in the Chechen Republic” . He further added that the designation “serves to notify Mr. Kadyrov that his involvement in gross violations of human rights has consequences, both for him and his family” .
Kadyrov ,in response, posted a picture of himself on his Telegram account wielding two machine guns with a taunt: “Pompeo, we accept the fight! From now it’s going to get more interesting!” . He questioned why the new sanctions were applied to his wife and children on the social media platform VKontakte,
He further called the United States “schemers, liars and global provocateurs” by stating that “What crimes have they committed, and what rights have they violated?” .
The U.S. took action two weeks after two Russians from Chechnya were arrested in Austria over the fatal shooting in Linz of Mamikhan Umarov who was a Chechen dissident blogger . Kadyrov blamed the murder on unspecified “foreign security services” who sought to make him look culpable.
The report also mentioned that in January 2020 Chechen opposition leader Imran Aliev was found dead in a hotel room in the northern French city of Lille, stabbed 135 times. With the proceeding chronology, in February Tumso Abdurakhmanov, a blogger critical of Kadyrov, was attacked with a hammer in Sweden. Two Russian citizens were arrested for attempted murder.
Kadyrov is a loyal ally of President Vladimir Putin and has led Chechnya since 2007 and is widely seen as having carte blanche from Moscow to use heavy-handed tactics. He is accused by rights activists of taking away freedom of speech and overseeing harsh reprisals against opponents and the LGBT community.
Kadyrov and several associates are already under economic sanctions set by the U.S. Treasury. According to the report, the State Department said they are concerned that Kadyrov “is now using the excuse of the coronavirus pandemic to inflict further human rights abuses on the people of the Chechen Republic.”
Meanwhile in Moscow, a government spokesperson told local news agencies that Russia would react to Washington’s action stating that “It will be difficult to mirror the move but we will think of something.”
