One of the founders of the Committee Against Torture says his mother has been targeted in an intimidation campaign because of his recent public condemnation of the "abduction" of the mother of one of the Russian human rights group's lawyers from her apartment in Nizhny Novgorod by Chechen police earlier this month.
Igor Kalyapin, who says he no longer works for the group, told RFE/RL on January 30 that posters with slogans saying "Kalyapin defends terrorists! Shame on the foreign agent!" appeared on the door of his 84-year-old mother's apartment and at the entrance to her building in Nizhny Novgorod overnight.
Russian and international human rights groups have for years accused Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed authoritarian ruler of Chechnya, a region in Russia's North Caucasus, of overseeing grave human rights abuses including abductions, torture, extrajudicial killings, and the persecution of the LGBT community.
Most recently, Zarema Musayeva, also known as Yangulbayeva, was taken from her apartment in Nizhny Novgorod on the evening of January 20 by masked men who introduced themselves as Chechen police.
Musayeva is the mother of noted rights lawyer Abubakar Yangulbayev.
"Local people know very well that I have not worked for the Committee Against Torture for four months now. Clearly this is a message from Chechnya, as I have openly expressed my opinion and have been working to make the Chechen authorities release Musayeva," Kalyapin said.
On January 21, Kadyrov said Yangulbayeva faced a "real prison sentence for attacking a law enforcement officer" and that her entire family could find themselves "either in jail or underground."
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Rights Activist's Mother Seized By 'Chechen Police' In Raid Far From Chechnya
In a separate statement, he called the Yangulbayev family, Kalyapin, and journalist Yelena Milashina "terrorists." Milashina often writes about rights abuses in Chechnya.
Amnesty International has described Yangulbayeva's detention as a "kidnapping" and urged the Russian federal authorities to act on the "lawlessness" that had "spilled out" of Chechnya.
Kremlin critics say Putin has turned a blind eye to the abuses and violations carried out by Kadyrov because he relies on the former rebel commander to control separatist sentiment and violence in Chechnya.
Chechnya went through two devastating post-Soviet wars and an Islamist insurgency that spread to other mostly Muslim regions in the North Caucasus.