Dear friends, Thanks to our joint efforts the Kremlin is furious, the authorities and police in Chechnya are in panic. For the first time during Ramzan Kadyrov’s rule in the Chechen Republic the activities of his administration are being investigated by a federal body. The policemen are being questioned, who have supposedly been involved in torturing and killing gays, as well as religious and public figures, who threatened the journalists reporting on the crimes against humanity in Chechnya. A report by Human Rights Watch quotes the victims as saying that the speaker of the Chechen parliament Magomed Daudov was personally present during the tortures of gays in the clandestine prisons. Two people, who were kept in one of these in Argun, have told the human rights organization that Daudov was watching the tortures and giving his own derogatory remarks. The report can be found in full here: https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/05/26/they-have-long-arms-and-they-can-find-me/anti-gay-purge-local-authorities-russias Other news in short: the policemen only come to depositions under the threat of being taken there by force; the relatives of the victims are forced to sign statements in which they declare that the victims left for Moscow altogether in late February and have no complaints against the police; the policemen are secretly helping the invention by passing over the lists of the people who have been illegally kept in one of Chechnya’s clandestine prisons. We must keep putting pressure on Moscow and Grozny so that this investigation do not collapse having barely started, but instead take the case to the court to seek justice for the innocent victims, who were taken away from their families, tortured and killed in Chechnya. As you all know, on 11 May we were detained while attempting to deliver nearly 400.000 of your signatures to the Prosecutor General’s office in Moscow. The trial is set for today and starts at 14.00 Moscow time at Tverskoy District Court. We will keep you updated as to the verdict. Thank you all, Nikita