An activist who picketed in support of her missing Chechen friend has disappeared after being detained by police in St. Petersburg, the human rights group NC SOS said Thursday.
Lena Patyayeva staged a protest on Wednesday, criticizing what she described as authorities’ sluggish investigation into the disappearance of Seda Suleimanova. Patyayeva befriended Suleimanova while the young woman was fleeing her conservative Chechen family.
Police detained Patyayeva on the Akhmat Kadyrov Bridge in southwestern St. Petersburg, citing alleged violations of Covid restrictions. She was later charged with “organizing mass protests,” an administrative offense.
NC SOS said lawyers were denied access to Patyayeva at two police stations where she was believed to be held. A court scheduled to hear her case claimed it had no record of her whereabouts.
Patyayeva has been actively searching for Suleimanova, whom some fear may have been killed in a so-called “honor killing” — a practice in which a woman is murdered by a relative, typically a man, for allegedly bringing shame to her family.
Suleimanova fled Chechnya in October 2022 after relatives threatened to kill her for refusing an arranged marriage.
In August 2023, Russian police officers and unidentified Chechen men abducted Suleimanova from her St. Petersburg apartment, where she had been living with her ethnic Russian fiance. NC SOS said authorities later claimed she had returned to Chechnya “voluntarily.”
She has not been heard from since. The last known image of her — wearing a long dress and headscarf — was posted by Chechnya’s human rights commissioner days after her forced return.
NC SOS said federal investigators launched a criminal probe into Suleimanova’s disappearance in April 2024.
Russian human rights groups have long highlighted the widespread issue of domestic violence against women in Chechnya, a conservative, Muslim-majority republic in the North Caucasus.
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