Updated 22:16 | Published 22:02
In Sweden, Koran burners go free. Not in Russia.
When Nikita Zhuravlov burned the Koran, he was sent to the Muslim sub-republic of Chechnya.
In custody, he was abused by 15-year-old Adam Kadyrov – who is now praised by father Ramzan.
In May, 19-year-old Nikita was arrested in Russia’s Volgograd, accused of burning the Koran outside a mosque and sending a video of the incident to Ukraine’s intelligence service.
He was considered to have “insulted the feelings of believers” and was detained in his hometown. But after just five days he was sent to a detention center 80 miles south, in the sub-republic of Chechnya.
The case was considered so serious that Vladimir Putin stated:
– He will serve his sentence in one of Russia’s regions that preferably has a Muslim population, said the president according to the newspaper Parlamentskaja Gazeta.
In August, it emerged that Nikita Zhuravlov had been beaten by Adam Kadyrov, the son of the Chechen republic’s president, Ramzan Kadyrov. On Monday, the president published a video in which the son kicks and punches Zhuravlov.
Father Ramzan testified that he was proud of his son and described the victim as follows:
– Such traitors are tumors that must be burned away.
Anonymous Russian lawyers who the BBC spoke to states that what has occurred means that Adam Kadyrov has committed at least nine crimes against Russian laws. But there is no indication that he will be punished, despite several Russian politicians criticizing the beating.
– In this region, they have shown that they can commit any crime without risking punishment, says for example Eva Merkatjeva, member of the Russian President’s Council for Human Rights.
The Deputy Speaker of the Duma, Vladislav Davankov, also states that abuse in custody is not an “acceptable punishment”.
So far, neither President Putin nor his spokesman Dmitry Peskov have answered questions about the incident:
– I will not comment on the story with Kadyrov’s son, Peskov said on Tuesday.
But political scientist Abbas Galljamov does not believe that the last word has been said. He tells the BBC:
– Chechnya’s leader has created a serious problem for Putin. The guy from Volgograd who burned the Koran may be an idiot, but at least he is an ethnic Russian and now it appears that Putin is ready to serve Russians on platters to the Chechens. Of course, a majority of Russians do not like it. And in the case of “Russian patriots” – those who support the war in Ukraine – this is like putting a knife to their throats.
Adam Kadyrov himself has published a kind of comment on the beating in his Telegram channel, next to a picture of him wearing sunglasses:
– You can hate me, but we both know that you will smile kindly when we meet, he writes according to the magazine Meduza.
Adam Kadyrov has previously been portrayed in the Chechen media as a brave young man who took prisoners of war, was at the front and received an award for “actions against terrorism”.
When he was 14, the regime released video clips of the teenager and his brothers lying in a trench in Donetsk. They fired with automatic weapons and grenade launchers.
A review of the video clips from the sons’ trip showed that they were in fact several kilometers from the front, according to Radio Free Europe.
Kadyrov claimed in later posts on Telegram that Adam and his two brothers returned from the front with a captured Ukrainian soldier each.
The 15-year-old has also been seen driving without a license in Dubai and taking part in a raid with Chechen special forces in which two “members of a militia planning attacks on the police” were killed.
Then Adam Kadyrov was photographed with an American-made automatic weapon.