Statement by regional branches of the Yabloko party in the South of Russia, 25.03.2021

Photo by scullery/depositphotos

In the fall of 2018, a peaceful protest began in the Republic of Ingushetia, dozens of thousands residents of the region participated in it. The reason for such events was the signing of the clandestine border agreement with the Chechen Republic by Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, head of the Republic. The people’s protest reached its climax by March 2019. After the unjustified use of force by law enforcement officers in Magas, on the morning of 27 March, 2019, the investigating authorities opened a number of criminal cases involving about 60 people, residents of Ingushetia, 49 of whom were arrested. More than 30 people have already been convicted.

A trial over the leaders and participants of the popular protest in Ingushetia is underway in Yessentuki. Along with the young people the elders Malsag Uzhakhov and Akhmed Barakhoev, as well as the cultural figure Zarifa Sautiyeva, have been under arrest for about two years. Representatives of civil society Musa Malsagov, Barakh Chemurziev, Bagaudin Khautiev and Ismail Nalgiev, decent, honored and respected people in Ingushetia, are on trial. Their social, charitable and human rights activities were of great benefit to the Republic and its residents. There were no grounds for their arrest or isolation from society. All of them are characterised from the positive side and inspire confidence in us. All seven defendants were recognised as political prisoners, that is, their criminal prosecution is politically motivated. What is being done today against the inhabitants of Ingushetia, and representatives of its civil society, represents groundless reprisals, which should have no place in the modern world.

The Kislovodsk City Court changed the measure of restraint to house arrest for Zarifa Sautiyeva, a defendant of the Ingush case, which became more humane than her unjustified detention in pre-trial detention centres in the North Caucasus. However, five days later, the Stavropol Regional Court again detained her without any legal and substantiated grounds for that. Such ruling of the court is certainly not based on the law and is purely political in nature. This decision caused an absolutely adequate reaction from all the defendants in the Ingush case, who declared an indefinite hunger strike and boycotted the trial.

The repressions unleashed in Ingushetia so that to fight opponents, lead to an increase of distrust to the federal and the regional authorities on the part of residents not only of Ingushetia, but also of other regions of the country. We have to state that in recent years, political activity, protection of human rights, and protection of public interests, have become presenting risk to the health and life of anyone who opposes the official authorities, and the North Caucasus has become a testing ground for trying various negative methods of influencing them [the dissenting]. This is unacceptable and poses a threat to the entire country. Such methods are already yielding negative results throughout the Russian Federation, where the number of political prisoners has been growing and is already approaching four hundred.

Considering the above, we declare that unjustified persecution of persons who oppose certain officials or the authorities in general, is inadmissible and express our support for political prisoners. We demand the release and cessation of criminal prosecution of participants in mass protests in Ingushetia. Now more than ever, the North Caucasus is waiting for the stabilisation of the socio-political situation, and the release of the Ingush civil activists will make a huge positive contribution to this. We appeal to political prisoners, Malsag Uzhakhov, Akhmed Barakhoev, Barakh Chemurziev, Musa Malsagov, Zarifa Sautiyeva, Bagaudin Khautiev and Ismail Nalgiev, who have declared a hunger strike, with a request to stop it, as it causes irreparable harm to your health.

Albert Esedov, Chairman of the Dagestan regional branch of the Yabloko party

Ruslan Mutsolgov, Chairman of the Ingush regional branch of the Yabloko party

Khakim Kuchmezov, Chairman of the Kabardino-Balkarian regional branch of the Yabloko Party

Akhmed Abazov, Chairman of the Karachay-Cherkess regional branch of the Yabloko party

Vitaly Zubenko, Chairman of the Stavropol regional branch of the Yabloko party