When 23-year-old Aishat Baimuradova fled her home earlier this year, she believed she finally had a chance to live the way she wanted. Coming from Chechnya, a conservative Muslim republic in Russia, she cut her hair short, stopped covering her head, shaved off part of her eyebrow and posted quirky selfies on Instagram. She told her new friends she could finally breathe. In October, Aishat was found dead in a rented flat in neighbouring Armenia. Police say she was murdered.
Two people were seen leaving the building where she was found, including a woman Aishat had befriended not long before her death. Both reportedly left for Russia soon afterwards. Russians do not need a passport to enter Armenia; their internal ID is enough. That also makes it an easy route for anyone trying to flee.
Chechnya, in Russia's North Caucasus, is often described by rights groups as a state within a state - a place where power is highly personalised and loyalty to long-standing leader Ramzan Kadyrov often overrides laws and formal institutions. For years, human rights organisations have documented enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings in the republic, as well as systematic persecution of those who dissent. Chechen officials have consistently denied these allegations, complaining of fabrications aimed at discrediting the region.
Several high-profile critics of Chechen authorities have been killed abroad, including Umar Israilov in Austria and Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin. However, Aishat Baimuradova is the first known Chechen woman to have died in suspicious circumstances shortly after fleeing Russia. Like many other women who escape the region, she had complained of being controlled by her family and monitored in her choices.
Aishat arrived in Armenia with the help of SK-SOS, a crisis group that assists people facing danger in the North Caucasus. She had openly criticized conservative gender rules and the suffocating control women faced in Chechnya. Despite her tragic end, her story reflects the critical issues of human rights and freedoms in a region where dissent can have deadly consequences.
Two people were seen leaving the building where she was found, including a woman Aishat had befriended not long before her death. Both reportedly left for Russia soon afterwards. Russians do not need a passport to enter Armenia; their internal ID is enough. That also makes it an easy route for anyone trying to flee.
Chechnya, in Russia's North Caucasus, is often described by rights groups as a state within a state - a place where power is highly personalised and loyalty to long-standing leader Ramzan Kadyrov often overrides laws and formal institutions. For years, human rights organisations have documented enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings in the republic, as well as systematic persecution of those who dissent. Chechen officials have consistently denied these allegations, complaining of fabrications aimed at discrediting the region.
Several high-profile critics of Chechen authorities have been killed abroad, including Umar Israilov in Austria and Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin. However, Aishat Baimuradova is the first known Chechen woman to have died in suspicious circumstances shortly after fleeing Russia. Like many other women who escape the region, she had complained of being controlled by her family and monitored in her choices.
Aishat arrived in Armenia with the help of SK-SOS, a crisis group that assists people facing danger in the North Caucasus. She had openly criticized conservative gender rules and the suffocating control women faced in Chechnya. Despite her tragic end, her story reflects the critical issues of human rights and freedoms in a region where dissent can have deadly consequences.
