Chechen Police Shoot Paintballs at Women With Uncovered Hair

by Sarah Menkedick · 2010-06-25 06:00:00 UTC
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Police officers in Chechnya have been firing paintballs at Chechen women with uncovered hair; the policemen drive by in cars with tinted windows and shoot the women in the face and neck as they're walking down the street.

Following the initial attacks last week, fliers from the shooters appeared in the Chechen city of Gudermes warning that if women didn't cover themselves the paintballers would resort to "tougher measures." The fliers also admonished, "Isn't it nasty for you, while dressed defiantly, with your head uncovered, to hear various obscene 'compliments' and proposals? Think again!"

This infuriating and degrading development — shooting women with paint?! — is one result of Russia's cold bargain with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a Chechen rebel-turned-Kremlin-loyalist. Trying to maintain control over Chechnya and quash any separatist uprisings, Russia has essentially allowed Kadryov to run the Chechen republic according to his version of Islamic law.

Russia has turned the other cheek as Kadryov gathers thousands of men into a personal militia to enforce bans on alcohol and mandatory headscarves for women. This method of enforcement via paintballing is particularly abhorrent — both violent and humiliating, a form of subtle terror aimed at forcing women into subjugation.

Human rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva told Reuters, "this paintballing is an obvious Kadyrov rule just used to strengthen and tighten his grip over his tiny republic." Shooting women with paint in the face on the street and filming it on mobile phones, then, is apparently this man's idea of strengthening power. This is an alarming sign of the increasing oppression of women in Chechnya that the international community needs to speak out about immediately, chastising both Kadyrov and the government in Moscow for violent violations of women's rights and dignity.

Photo credit: No3rdw

Sarah Menkedick is a freelance writer currently based in Oaxaca, Mexico. She has spent the last five years teaching, writing and traveling on five continents. She regularly writes about women's rights.
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