On occasion of the anniversary of the deportation of the Chechens under Stalin (on February 23, 1944), the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) warns about a misguided anti-terrorism policy: "The tragedy of the Chechens of the past 70 years clearly shows what a policy of violence, arbitrariness and state terror leads to. All over the world, many of the Chechen refugees live in uncertainty and despair – and the young people are radicalized. In Chechnya itself, Ramzan Kadyrov's reign is based on fear and arbitrariness. There are only negative headlines about Chechnya – and the official Chechen and Russian politics are misusing the situation to introduce further counter-terrorism measures. The Russian President Vladimir Putin is directly responsible for serious crimes against humanity during the second Chechen war – as well as for Ramzan Kadyrov's reign of terror, which he held a protecting hand over for years," criticizes Sarah Reinke, the STP's expert on questions concerning the CIS-states.

For many years, the Chechens had the 23rd of February as a day of remembrance. Since 2014, this is no longer possible because Kadyrov moved the Memorial Day to May 10, the day after the death of his Father. Anyone who commemorates must fear to be persecuted, like the Chechen human rights activist Ruslan Kutajev: In July, 2014, Kutajev was sentenced to four years imprisonment in an unfair trial. In February 2014, he had organized a conference in Grozny to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the deportation.

In Chechnya, it is no longer possible to engage in human rights work, as the case of Igor Kaljapin shows. He is in charge of the Russian "Committee Against Torture" and of the mobile human rights group that regularly travels to Chechnya to help victims of human rights violations. After a major terrorist attack on the press center in Grozny on December 4, 2014, Kadyrov accused Kaljapin of having financed the attack. Kadyrov threatened to destroy the homes of family members of the alleged perpetrators. According to research by Russian human rights activist, 15 houses have been destroyed already. The evidence was presented at a press conference in Moscow in December. There, Kadyrov's followers threw eggs at Kaljapin. Also, two employees of the human rights organization "Memorial" were pelted with eggs and threatened in their office in Chechnya. But without the commitment of the human rights defenders, the victims of Kadyrov's politics would have even less chances to obtain justice.

The collective deportation of the Chechens and Ingush to Central Asia, organized by the Red Army, started on February 23, 1944. Approximately 460,000 people were deported and 40 to 50 percent of the deportees in the trains are said to have been children. There are no exact casualty figures, but it is estimated that about 40 percent died. Up to 160,000 people were killed in the two Chechen wars of 1994 to 1996 and 1999 to 2009.