During a live broadcast, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov commented on the case of political prisoner Zarema Musayeva—the wife of federal judge Saidi Yangulbayev and mother of opposition activists Abubakar, Ibrahim, and Baysangur Yangulbayev. He claimed the woman was "taken" to Chechnya because her family members "worked on social media." A relevant excerpt from the broadcast was published by Chechen opposition blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov.
"Her father, mother, and brother—we discovered they all worked on social media. Then they followed them to Russia and took the woman. Her husband fled. If he had been brave, he would have come with his wife," Kadyrov said.
Thus, the regional leader linked Musayeva's detention to the social activities of her family members.
Musayeva's two sons, Ibragim and Baysangur Yangulbaev, are known as the authors of the Telegram channel 1ADAT, which previously actively published materials about abductions, torture, and extrajudicial killings in Chechnya. Russian authorities have declared the resource extremist. Another son, Abubakar Yangulbaev, was an employee of the Committee Against Torture.
As a reminder, on January 20, 2022, police officers from Chechnya arrived in Nizhny Novgorod and forcibly took Musayeva back to her home region. After being taken to Grozny, she was accused of fraud and of using force against a police officer, allegedly scratching his face.
In July 2023, a Chechen court sentenced Musayeva to five years in prison based on these charges. In early March 2024, the Pyatigorsk Court of Cassation reduced the woman's sentence, reducing it from five years to four years and nine months.
On August 6, the court sentenced Zarema Musayeva in a new criminal case. She was sentenced to three years and 11 months in a penal colony on charges of disrupting the functioning of a correctional facility. According to investigators, Musayeva attacked an FSIN officer. Taking into account the unserved month from the previous case, the final sentence was four years.
According to the case materials, Musayeva allegedly attacked a guard during transport to the hospital, scratching his neck and damaging his shoulder strap. However, the testimony of the FSIN officers is contradictory: one guard claimed that Musayeva hit and scratched him, while the other did not witness it.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly stated that Musayeva's criminal prosecution is connected to the activities of her sons, who reside outside of Russia. Furthermore, human rights activists note that the second criminal case against Musayeva was opened two days after one of the Yangulbayevs made a harsh public statement about Ramzan Kadyrov.
The day after Musayeva's abduction, the head of Chechnya publicly threatened her family. A rally against the Yangulbayev family took place in central Grozny, during which portraits of its members were burned, torn, and trampled. The event was covered by pro-government Chechen media. In May, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Russia to pay Zarema Musayeva €52,000 ($55,000) in compensation for her arrest. Russian authorities refused to comply with the court's decision.
