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Month: Wednesday June 26th, 2019

On personality cult and the role of a female museum guide in Grozny

Elmira is a guide at the Akhmad Kadyrov museum in Grozny. It is eulogising the first president of the modern Russian-backed Chechen Republic, around whom a personality cult has been built. After supporting separatism during the first Chechen war Akhmad Kadyrov switched sides, supporting Russia during the second with his…

Discrimination, Arbitrariness and Kidnapping: Homelessness in Belarus

In Belarus gibt es keine Obdachlosen und keine Armut. So lautet zumindest die Staatsdoktrin der autoritären Regierung von Präsident Alexander Lukaschenko. Die Realität ist davon allerdings weit entfernt, wie eine Reise in das osteuropäische Land sowie Treffen mit Betroffenen und Vertretern von Hilfsorganisationen zeigen.

A villager’s life shaped by the horrors of the Chechen wars

“Masked Russian soldiers would just grab people from the street at checkpoints, take them away and shoot them. Just if they had a beard, if they had some markings on their shoulders that could stem from a gun, if they wore a traditional Muslim hat. This happened all the time.…