The appeal, carrying 114 signatures, was published on September 29 by the Kabardino-Balkarian Regional Human Rights Center and was flagged by the outlet 7x7. The signatories say that over the past two years about 100 people in the republic have become defendants in criminal cases of a terrorist nature.
According to the authors of the letter, all the cases are opened according to a single scheme. Officers of the Center for Countering Extremism and the regional Federal Security Service (FSB) directorate select people mainly on religious grounds, plant phones during searches with Telegram installed and fabricated correspondence about an intention to join "Imarat Kavkaz," and then torture them to obtain self-incriminating testimony and statements against others.
The signatories said the investigation does not verify the origin of the phones, their usage history or the authorship of the correspondence, and that the cases rely on identical testimony from classified witnesses. The authors also report threats to open cases against the relatives of the accused.
According to the authors of the appeal, one mosque imam was driven to suicide, having left a note beforehand explaining his decision. Among those targeted was a retired Interior Ministry officer who had himself fought terrorists and survived an assassination attempt against him.
"Until 2024, not a single crime of an extremist or terrorist nature occurred in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. There was not even a hint of it, the Republic lived in peace and harmony, all religions coexist and are practiced peacefully here without any conflicts," the appeal says. In the signatories' view, individual officials and leaders are receiving ranks and posts and "padding the statistics" in this way, without thinking about ruined families and the mood of the population.
The appeal is addressed to Putin, the heads of the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General's Office, the FSB and other representatives of the authorities, as well as to human rights defenders. The signatories ask for an independent commission to be created and for the criminal cases listed in the annex to be checked for signs of fabrication.