All 2023 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
  Feb Apr Apr Mar Jan Jan Feb Sep Apr Mar Feb Feb
    Jun May Jun Mar Mar Mar Dec Jun Apr Mar Mar
    Jul Jul Dec May May Jul   Aug May Jun Apr
    Aug Aug   Jun Jun Aug   Oct Jun Sep May
          Jul Jul Sep     Dec Nov Jun
          Aug Aug Oct       Dec Jul
          Nov Sep Nov         Sep
          Dec Oct Dec         Oct
            Nov           Dec
                         
                         
                         

26 December 2017

Total compensation for applicants assisted by Justice Initiative came to 17,908,539 euros in 2017

Our lawyers submitted 25 applications to the ECHR in 2017. As in the past, most of the applications concerned violation of the right to life. We submitted 13 applications on behalf of 49 applicants who have suffered as a result of extra-judicial executions or forced disappearances.

11 December 2017

ECHR to examine an application concerning the shooting of civilians in 2010

The application Tatayev and others vs the Russian Federation was submitted to the ECHR in 2015 with the help of Justice Initiative. “Wild garlic picking in these districts is a difficult and dangerous job but people had no choice but to take up this occupation for lack of any other livelihood”, said lawyer Tanzila Arsamakova, who works with Justice Initiative. “The applicants and their relatives who were killed all had the necessary permits from the village administration to collect wild garlic in this location. They had been engaged in this work for some time now. The authorities simply had to have known that around 100 civilians were in the forest, but they nonetheless gave the order to fire indiscriminately on the forest from machine guns and grenade launchers”.  

10 November 2017

Complaint in the ECHR from Saida Khalikova about remoteness of her place of detention and failure to provide medical assistance

Saida Khalikova was sentenced by the Moscow district military court in 2015 to five years in a general-regime prison colony. She has been in detention since December 2014. During the investigation, she and her mother Raziyat Isambekova came under pressure from Investigative Committee officials.  Saida has suffered from a blood disorder for many years now. Lawyers from Justice Initiative sent a request to prison colony 28 and enabled her to undergo an out-patient medical examination.  On November 9 2017, Justice Initiative sent to the ECHR an application in which Khalikova and her mother Raziyat Isambekova complain of inadequate medical assistance at prison colony 28 in Volgograd Region. 

24 August 2017

SJI briefed the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on identification of remains of applicant’s son

SJI submitted a statement to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe regarding implementation of the decision in the case of Israilova and others vs Russia. The applicant’s son, Sharpuddin Israilov, disappeared in December 2002 from the territory of the Khankala military base in Grozny.

16 August 2017

The Ingushetia Supreme Court overturned the sentence against Mukharbek Yevloyev on August 16 2017

Lawyer Vitaly Zubchenko, who works with Justice Initiative, said in his comments that assessment of the voluntary or involuntary nature of a decision not to go ahead with the crime is part of the circumstances of the case. In its earlier examination, the court of first instance concluded that the defendants were guilty. The first appeal court also examined the circumstances, including the issue of voluntary nature, and upheld the sentence.   

7 July 2017

Kirov Region Investigative Committee opens criminal case into death of Amur Khakulov

“We fought for nearly two years for Khakulov to get medical aid”, Diana Kostina said. “We will seek a full and fair investigation into his death. This will be possible only if, first, the fact that he did not get proper treatment for a long time at the pre-trial detention centre in Nalchik is taken into account, and second, that the courts’ decisions ignored the medical commission’s conclusions and doctors’ demands. Finally, the Federal Corrections Service personal did not provide him with the needed treatment during the transfer to the prison colony. He did not therefore receive the regular treatment he needed and died as a result. All of this points to systematic violations of the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and the principles of Russian legislation on protection of health of life”. 

8 June 2017

ECHR communicates application by Ayub Tuntuyev regarding torture case to the Russian government

Tuntuyev was taken to the headquarters of Prison Colony No.6, where he was met by three men who introduced themselves as being from the Federal Security Service (FSB). The three men spent half-an-hour threatening him and pressuring him to confess to a new crime. Another man then entered the room and introduced himself as an investigator from Pyatigorsk. He asked Tuntuyev to sign a statement renouncing his right to a lawyer. Tuntuyev refused. The investigator did not insist and left. The three FSB men returned and, facing their threats, Tuntuyev was forced to renounce the right to a lawyer.  

24 May 2017

Mother of another disappeared victim of domestic violence turns to Justice Initiative

The abduction of Marem’s sister Yelizaveta in July 2015 is also connected to Marem’s tragic fate. For this crime, the Magas District Court sentenced Mukharbek Yevloyev to six years in prison, and his accomplice, Murad Paragulgov, received five years in prison. Search warrants are out for four other relatives of the accused, who also took part in the crime. The Magas court decision was handed down in February 2017.  

5 May 2017

Ingushetia Supreme Court reviews sentence of abductors of Yelizaveta Aliyeva

The investigation report states that Mukharbek Yevloyev abducted Yelizaveta Aliyeva from her home on July 9, 2015. He was looking for Aliyeva’s sister, Marem. Together with five armed men, he broke into Yelizaveta Aliyeva’s house, demanding to know where his wife was. Aliyeva and her husband were bundled into a car and driven towards the city dump in Nazran. Neighbours called the police and this saved Aliyeva, as she was able to escape from the car when the abductors stopped to hide from the police patrol.

2 May 2017

Russian Justice Initiative providing legal aid to women victims of domestic violence

Russian Justice Initiative is continuing its project to provide comprehensive legal aid to women from various parts of the country who are victims of domestic violence.    Since 2009, our lawyers have represented the interests of women from the North Caucasus republics in cases related to honour killings, bride abductions, violence in the family and decisions regarding custody of children. The project provides a lawyer free of charge to victims of violence in the home, rape, sexual harassment, human trafficking, and gender-based discrimination, living in different Russian regions and who express the desire to defend their rights.

7 March 2017

Court refuses to exclude evidence obtained under torture from prosecution’s case against Ayub Tuntuyev

The criminal case was opened after the European Court of Human Rights communicated Tuntuyev’s application and sent questions to the Russian government on investigating the torture used against him. The application was made by Justice Initiative and notes that Tuntuyev faces pressure, the investigators have been inactive, and it took a long time for a criminal case to be opened. 

16 January 2017

Russian Justice Initiative provided prosecutors in Dagestan with 42 anonymous interviews collected during a study of female genital mutilation in the republic

On December 13, 2016, Russian Justice Initiative received via fax an official request from the Dagestan Prosecutor’s Office, stating that, in order to conduct an investigation, we “must provide information, complete with personal details, confirming the practice of these operations, on individuals involved in performing these operations, on the victims of these operations, on the individuals who surveyed the women and the experts, and information on the women and experts mentioned in the study”. Russian Justice Initiative published the study on female genital mutilation in Dagestan, with open access, on August 15, 2016. The study is based on results obtained through an anonymous qualitative study on the practice of female genital mutilation of girls in the Republic of Dagestan.