Man abducted from Moscow railway station charged with ‘incitement to extremism’

The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against blogger and entrepreneur Areg Shchepikhin, the man abducted from a central Moscow railway station by Chechen security forces on Tuesday, its press service has reported.

Shchepikhin is to face charges for incitement to extremism and incitement to hatred. While the Investigative Committee said that its investigations into Shchepikhin were ongoing, it said an analysis of a video he had posted online on Tuesday in which he insulted Chechens and other Muslims demonstrated “signs of incitement to commit violent acts against and humiliate a group of persons based on their national and/or ethnic characteristics”.

The investigators said that the six men who forcibly abducted Shchepikhin had also been charged with kidnapping and abuse of office.

The men, linked to the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, kidnapped Shchepikhin from the Yaroslavsky station in central Moscow on Tuesday evening and took him to an unknown location outside the city in the trunk of a car with flashing lights. He was released some hours later. Shchepikhin said the Chechen security forces didn’t torture him “badly”, choosing to interrogate him instead. His face showed signs of bruising.

Chechnya’s National Policy Minister Akhmed Dudaev said the security forces had detained, not abducted, Shchepikhin, adding that he was being investigated for insulting the feelings of believers and inciting hatred or enmity based on national and religious grounds.