“Let justice reign!” reads the banner hanging over the compound of the court house in Shali, Chechnya. The slogan is accompanied by a strict-looking Akhmat Kadyrov, the North Caucasus republic’s former leader.. Next to the courthouse, there’s a new business centre (“Shali-City”) and a mosque named in honour of Akhmat Kadyrov’s son, Ramzan.
A police jeep leaves the compound. Oyub Titiyev, the director of the Grozny branch of the Memorial human rights association, has just been placed in it after receiving a four year prison sentence on narcotics charges. This sentence was less than what the prosecutors requested - four years of strict regime prison plus a 100,000 rouble (£1,160) fine.
Oyub’s older brother Yakub was ready for this sentence. Last summer he’d received hints that if Oyub apologised to the right people, then the Memorial director could have been “forgiven” - in the form of a lighter sentence and a quiet life for his family. But Titiyev’s relatives did not even consider it as an option. “He’s got nothing to be sorry for, let the guilty ones apologise,” Yakub tells me. Oyub’s sisters, Dzharadat and Khava, remain stoic, their eyes free of tears. Dzharadat and Khava are holding up for Oyub’s sake: he is concerned about them and should see that they are doing fine. This court, Dzharadat and Khava tell me, does not deserve their sorrow.
