St. Petersburg woman fined 150,000 rubles for protesting friend’s disappearance in suspected ‘honour killing’ 

A court in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Republic of Chechnya, has fined a St. Petersburg woman 150,000 rubles (€1,600) for staging a solo picket demanding an investigation into the suspected murder of her friend, a Chechen woman who was abducted by security forces in 2023 and has not been heard from since.

The Akhmatovsky District Court in Grozny found Lena Patyaeva guilty of repeatedly violating rules on public gatherings, Mediazona reported. The ruling was posted on the court’s website.

Patyaeva held the picket on 23 August, the anniversary of her friend Seda Suleymanova’s abduction, in Grozny’s Journalists' Square. She held a sign reading “I demand an investigation into the murder of Seda Suleymanova”. The protest coincided with celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the birth of Akhmat Kadyrov, the father of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Seda Suleymanova fled Chechnya for St. Petersburg in 2022 after relatives threatened to kill her for refusing an arranged marriage. The following year, Chechen security forces abducted her and took her back to Chechnya. She has not been heard from since publicly since. In April 2024, Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into her disappearance under the article covering murder, but no findings have been made public.

Since Suleymanova vanished, Patyaeva has repeatedly held solo pickets and petitioned various authorities, demanding an investigation.