The Khachaturyan sisters stabbed their father to death in their Moscow flat while he slept in July of last year.

While that sounds like a heinous crime, around 350 000 people have signed a petition calling for them to be released, and investigators have confirmed that their father, 57-year-old Mikhail Khachaturyan, mentally and physically abused them for years.

It became too much for the sisters to bear on July 27, 2018, when Mikhail “scolded them for not cleaning the flat properly and sprayed pepper gas in their faces”.

As the BBC reports, that was the breaking point:

Soon afterwards, when he had fallen asleep, the girls attacked him with a knife, hammer and pepper spray, inflicting fatal wounds to his head, neck and chest. He was found to have more than 30 knife wounds.

The young women then called the police and were arrested at the scene.

The investigation soon uncovered an extensive history of violence in the family. Khachaturyan had regularly beaten his daughters over three years, torturing them, keeping them as prisoners and sexually abusing them.

The case quickly became a cause celebre in Russia. Human rights activists argued that the sisters were not criminals but victims, as they had no means of getting help and protection from their abusive father.

However, there are no laws protecting victims of domestic violence in Russia.

You read that right – no laws, and police in the country are basically told to treat domestic as a family issue that is best left alone.

A 2017 law change means that first-time offenders who are found guilty of beating a family member will only face a fine, or at worst two weeks in custody, as long as the family member doesn’t end up in hospital.

The Khachaturyan family had been trying to get help for years:

The sisters’ mother, who had also suffered beatings and abuse from Khachaturyan in the past, had approached the police years before. So did the family’s neighbours, who were highly afraid of him. But there is no evidence that the police acted on any of these appeals for help.

At the time of the murder the girls’ mother was not living with them and Khachaturyan had forbidden his daughters from contacting her.

According to psychiatric assessments, the girls lived in isolation and had been suffering from post-traumatic stress (PTSD).

As things stand, the case against the sisters is moving slowly, and whilst they are no longer in custody, they are forbidden from speaking to one another or journalists whilst they await trial.

The prosecution claims that it was a premeditated, revenge killing, and if found guilty, the sisters would each face up to 20 years in jail.

The defence insists that the sisters were victims of “continuous crime” and should therefore be released. The sisters’ lawyers are hopeful the case could be dropped, as the investigation has confirmed extensive abuse by Khachaturyan towards his daughters dating back as early as 2014.

Human rights activists and many other Russians now want the law changed and measures introduced such as state-funded shelters, restraining orders and courses for managing abusers’ aggressive behaviour.

With the case grabbing the country’s attention, a spotlight has been shone on the country’s woeful approach to domestic violence. In fact, some experts have concluded that up to 80% of women found guilty of murder in Russia killed a domestic abuser in self-defence.

Naturally, there is a section of extremely trashy men who are worried they might be added to that statistic:

 An association called Men’s State, which cites “patriarchy” and “nationalism” as its two main values, and boasts almost 150,000 members on social media, organised a campaign called “Murderers behind Bars”, insisting that the sisters should not be released.

Snowflakes.

If you want to sign the Change petition, which calls on Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Alexander Bastyrkin to “quash the indictment against the Khachaturyan sisters and to indict the deceased posthumously,” you can do so here.

[source:bbc]