Chechnya women’s Islamic dress code: Russia blamed

Summary of story from BBC, 10.3.11.

Russia has been criticised for letting Chechen authorities impose a compulsory Islamic dress code for women.

A report by Human Rights Watch includes testimonies from dozens of Chechen women who were threatened or even attacked with paintballs by young men enforcing the ‘virtue campaign’.

The rights group says some attacks involved Chechen security forces.

The campaign has the backing of President Ramzan Kadyrov, relied on by Moscow to stabilise the region.

In 2007, President Kadyrov issued an edict that banned bareheaded women from entering state buildings. Though this is in direct violation of Russian law, it is strictly followed today.

Since then, an unofficial campaign limiting Chechen women’s freedoms has been gaining strength, Human Rights Watch says.

A Russian rights activist, Natalya Estemirova, who had publicly criticised the Islamic dress campaign, was abducted from Grozny in July 2009 and her body was later found in the neighbouring republic of Ingushetia.

President Kadyrov praised the paintball attackers, and leaflets later surfaced warning that women who failed to wear headscarves could face “more persuasive measures”.

“The enforcement of a compulsory Islamic dress code on women in Chechnya violates their rights to private life, personal autonomy, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, thought, and conscience,” the HRW report says.

“It is also a form of gender-based discrimination prohibited under international treaties to which Russia is a party.”

“These attacks against women are outrageous, and the alleged involvement of law enforcement officials is of special concern,” HRW’s Russia researcher Tanya Lokshina says.

“The Kremlin should publicly and unambiguously make clear… that Chechen women, like Russian women, are free to dress as they choose.”