By Ayman Eckford and Ayub Sharp
How would you feel if you were stuck in a dystopian land, seeing your neighbours being kidnapped and tortured for saying a wrong word, having a beard, or just without any particular reason? How would you feel if, for years, you avoided calling the murder of your people for what it is? Frightened not only for yourself but for those related to you.
Imagine you remember a time when your home was different, before the war, before occupation. A time when your people were able to make decisions for themselves—but those times are now long gone. Imagine being kidnapped and threatened with your relative’s life just for speaking up against a policy of collective punishment for families of dissidents.
The police arrive at your house without showing their badges or any form of identification. Then they threaten to kill your aunt if you don’t comply, leaving you with no choice but to follow them. At the police station, they bring you to hear the echoes and cries of a tortured man. The policemen start yelling at you, openly saying that they were going to shoot you for being a “Salafi extremist” because you have a beard, while simultaneously mocking you for listening to Western music and wearing denim.
You might ask, “How could someone be both a Salafi extremist and pro-Western?” But, logic didn’t matter to them. They weren’t interested in reason, only in results, in adding another statistic for the occupation’s so-called “anti-terrorism” campaign.
You know that if you don’t find a way out, your children will have to endure the same as you. So you find a way out for the sake of your family, a way to move away from your recast home—a way to live in a safe country. You now know that most of the world will not punish you for calling a “murder” and “oppression” for what it is. There are places on this planet where the rule of law and freedom of speech are not just empty words from Hollywood blockbusters.
It’s when you abandon everything—your mother, your siblings, your ancestor’s village, the home that was built by your grandfather and your friends. You came to this new land with an unfamiliar language for the sake of a basic freedom, but then you suddenly realize that you could never be completely free. You are not like other Europeans who could say whatever they wanted. You find that if you speak up about the situation in your homeland; about the war, occupation and inhuman mass-terror campaigns, then your relatives back home will suffer. The occupants would make them suffer for your words.
How would you feel then? What would you do?
What land were you imagining when you read this story?
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This is not a testament about Gaza, Eastern Turkestan or other places that more likely came to your mind after the words “brutal occupation of Muslim land.” More importantly, it is not a work of fiction.
It is the story of a Chechen refugee, Ayub, who has been living in Germany for the last eight years. The German migration service tried to deport him this summer, and my attempts to save him from deportation were one of the most stressful moments in my life.
Recently, Ayub spoke about the Chechen medical system and issues with municipal departments in occupied Chechnya on a Telegram channel run by a well-known Chechen influencer.
He wasn’t the main speaker, just a commenter, but that didn’t matter. The Russian occupational police went after his friends and relatives back home, threatening them for the crime he committed by speaking up while he was abroad.
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The situation with the war in Chechnya is deeply simplified and misunderstood in the West. This is not a “conflict between Wahabi and Sufis”. Nor is it just another chapter in the so-called War on Terror, as Russia tries to portray it in the West.
This is a brutal 400-year-long anti-colonial struggle that never truly ended.
After the Soviet Union Collapsed, Chechnya declared its independence, only to be attacked by Russia in 1994. Against all odds, Chechnya won and secured its freedom against a global superpower. When Vladimir Putin came to power, he attacked the independent Chechen republic of Ichkeria the second time. Resistance was crushed through the relentless bombings, cities were reduced to rubble and whole villages were wiped out. These are the same tactics Russia would later use in Ukraine. The difference is when Russia attacks Ukraine, the entire world will listen. Since Ukrainians are predominantly White Christians, the world cared more. Especially because Ukraine is close to Western Europe. Dangerously close.
But what would happen if someone listened to Chechens? If Russia wasn’t allowed to use and abuse Western “war on terror” against Chechnya? Would Russian imperialism have ended there?
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Currently Chechens are living under brutal occupation in which Russian authorities could kidnap anyone and kill them for almost anything. Wearing the niqab, listening to prohibited music and sharing a meme on social media—any of these can warrant a punishment. They live in a place where women can be forced into marriages with pro-Russian officials. Anti-Russian remarks made by anyone in their family, even those living abroad, could have repercussions for those living in Chechnya. This is the problem. The Russian occupation system has exploited the close family ties within the Chechen community, using them as a weapon of oppression.
The stories are endless. An American Chechen refugee who couldn’t visit or speak to his elderly mother, fearing it would put her life in danger; a well-known blogger whose mother had already suffered in a Russian prison; and countless activists whose siblings, uncles, and cousins have been kidnapped as a result of using their voices to speak up. Every Chechen in Europe and the United States knows that their family could be next. This silence is deafening and makes it impossible to speak up about the occupation back home or fight for their rights without endangering their loved ones.
The Chechen experience remains erased and invisible to the West, which only deepens their oppression.
It is a loop that can’t be broken until we are ready to watch the situation from a Chechen perspective.
Riadh Magazine 
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