Putin's Winter Games are a slap in the face for the descendants of the Circassian genocide victims – and there will be even more violence in North Caucasus.

A few hours before the opening of the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) organized a human rights campaign in front of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Berlin, raising serious allegations against President Vladimir Putin. "Putin is mocking the descendants of the Circassian genocide victims. Also, there will be even more violence and arbitrariness in the regions of the Northern Caucasus," criticized the STP's expert on the CIS states, Sarah Reinke, in Berlin on Friday. Circassian representatives who took part in the STP's human rights campaign added: "It is intolerable that skiing competitions will take place on the remains of our ancestors in Krasnaya Polyana, without any remembrance of their suffering 150 years ago." During the construction work for the Olympic sites, workers had discovered human remains of Circassians who had been killed in the final battle against the Russian domination in 1864. Following their defeat, all surviving Circassians were expelled. According to estimates, about one million people lost their lives during the genocide.

"Instead of accepting the Winter Games as a chance to reconcile with the Circassians 150 years after the genocide, the Russian government uses the preparations for the event to suppress the Circassian movement and to threaten and harass the civilian population in other regions of the Northern Caucasus," said Reinke. "Cries for help by Circassians from Syria – who wanted to return to North Caucasus as civil war refugees – were ignored, just like the requests to include the Circassians and to try and work up their suffering in the course of the Winter Games. Instead, they are being pursued and treated as terrorists. Eight Circassian activists were arrested in December 2013."

According to the STP, Putin has made Sochi a giant Potemkin village – with shiny facades, but with terror and violence nearby regions of the Northern Caucasus. "During the past few weeks, dozens of young men from our village were arbitrarily detained by the security forces," a refugee from Chechnya told the human rights organization. The population in Dagestan believes that Putin is using Sochi as an excuse to go to war. Mothers of abducted or missing young men are being intimidated to keep them from searching for their sons. Many of the desperate women fear that nobody will care about their kidnapped sons after the Winter Games either – and that the whole situation will grow even worse.