Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov has posted a video to his Telegram channel showing his 15-year-old son Adam beating up a defenceless 19-year-old in detention in Chechnya for allegedly burning a copy of the Quran.
In the video, which Kadyrov posted on Monday, Adam Kadyrov, dressed in a camouflage uniform, punches and kicks Nikita Zhuravel, who attempts to protect himself from the blows.
“He did the right thing to beat him up”, Kadyrov wrote in the caption to the video, adding that he was “proud “ of his son’s choice.
The head of Chechnya argued that the Russian state legally protected “holy books” and condemned anyone who “violated sacred items” as “a malignant tumour”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on the situation at a regular briefing with journalists, Interfax Russian news agency reported on Tuesday. When asked why he wouldn’t comment, he replied simply: “I don’t want to”.
Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s human rights commissioner, responded to the video on Tuesday, saying that “irrespective of the severity of the crime committed, people should answer for it before the court of law”, conceding, however, that destroying holy books could not “go unpunished”.
Zhuravel, a 19-year-old resident of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea, was placed in custody in May for allegedly burning a copy of the Quran in front of a Volgograd mosque and posting a video of the act “on an Internet portal controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces”.
A criminal investigation was launched, and the case was given to the office of the Russian Investigative Committee in the Muslim-majority region of Chechnya.
The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe, Kirill Martynov, has appealed to the Russian authorities to hold Ramzan Kadyrov accountable for the actions of his son. “Kadyrov forces his son to use violence against prisoners, which is not only prohibited by Russian law but is also clearly detrimental to the interests of the minor,” Martynov said in a statement.
Martynov also appealed to Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, asking her to intervene. “Children in Russia should not grow up to become prison executioners, even if their father considers it a decent career,” Martynov wrote.
