Chechen court fines woman 150,000 rubles for protesting the disappearance of her friend Seda Suleimanova, whom police forcibly returned to Chechnya three years ago
Grozny’s Akhmatovsky District Court fined St. Petersburg resident Lena Patyayeva 150,000 rubles for holding a solo picket on the third anniversary of the disappearance of her friend Seda Suleimanova, a Chechen woman, according to a post on Chechnya’s Supreme Court website.
On August 23, 2026, a woman named Lena Patyayeva held a solitary protest in Grozny, standing before a memorial to fallen journalists. She carried a sign that read, "I demand an investigation into the murder of Seda Suleimanova" and, in Chechen, "Where is Seda?" Patyayeva was arrested following the demonstration. Seda Suleimanova, a Chechen woman, had fled her family in 2022 to escape an arranged marriage.
She resided in St. Petersburg. On August 18, 2023, police apprehended her, alleging she had stolen jewelry worth 150,000 rubles from her mother. They forcibly returned her to Chechnya and handed her over to her relatives. A photograph and video of Suleimanova were subsequently published by Chechnya's human rights ombudsman, Mansur Soltayev, but she has not been seen since.
In February 2024, the SK SOS project reported that Suleimanova may have been killed by her relatives. Subsequently, a public campaign emerged demanding her rescue, leading Russia's Investigative Committee to initiate a murder investigation in May 2025. Suleimanova was declared a missing person, and a search was launched.
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