Yangulbaev case

The Yangulbaev case (Russian: Дело Янгулбаевых) is a socio-political scandal that erupted in Russia in early 2022. Lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Abubakar Yangulbaev announced the disappearance of several dozen of his relatives in Chechnya.[1] After that, the Chechen security forces forcibly took his mother Zarema Musayeva (wife of a retired federal judge) from Nizhny Novgorod to Grozny,[2] where she became a defendant in a criminal case and was sent to a pre-trial detention center. Abubakar's brother, Ibragim, was put on the federal wanted list, his father and sister hastily left Russia. The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, said that members of the Yangulbaev family should be detained and punished, “and if they resist, then they should be destroyed as accomplices of terrorists”; he later demanded from foreign governments that the fugitives be returned to Chechnya.

On February 2, 2022, a rally was held in Grozny, the participants of which burned and trampled on the portraits of the Yangulbaevs; according to official figures, there were about 400,000 protesters.[3]

The European Union called on the Russian authorities to immediately release Musaeva.