Protest actions in Ingushetia

4.9. Protest actions in Ingushetia

Close to 9 am, the protesters changed the place of the action and moved to the building of the secondary school No 1. Several members of the National Assembly of RI had also arrived there. One of the members of the National Assembly, Bamatgiri Mankiev, spoke before the gathering. He accused the Ingushetian authorities of criminal non-feasance that, in his opinion, was the main reason behind the widespread human rights violations in the territory of the republic. After 2:00 pm the rally finished. The participants in the protest action adopted an appeal to the President of RI M.M Zyazikov, in which they demanded from him to put an end to the practice of abductions of people in the territory of Ingushetia and of exporting them to the neighbouring republics.

At about 4:30 am a group of masked armed men broke into house No 40 on Ovrazhnaya st., in the village of Surkhakhi and grabbed Khalit Bamatgirievich Aushev, born in 1980, who lived there. He was thrown into a car and intended to be taken away. For all that, the armed men did not produce any documents and did not explain anything. However, they were not able to leave the village - the local residents, armed with axes and pitchforks, barricaded the road. The police officers who arrived shortly afterwards demanded from the unidentified "siloviks" to show their documents. It turned out that those were officers of the UFSB for the Republic of North Ossetia - Alania, however, they did not have any warrant for the arrest of Khalit Aushev. They were forced to release him and leave. On that day the relatives of Kh.Aushev themselves brought him to the building of the Ministry of Interior of RI and handed him over to the police officers. Before that, they secured a promise from the Minister of Interior of RI Moussa Medov that he would personally find out, what Khalit Aushev was accused of and that the latter would not be taken out of Ingushetia.

On both sides of the "Kavkaz"-thoroughfare passing through the intersection, a considerable traffic jam had formed. A bus with trafic police officers arrived at the scene of protest. The participants in the protest action started a squabble with the officer who ordered them to clear the intersection.

At noon Moussa Medov, who had just acceded to his office as the Minister of Interior of RI, arrived at the place of the rally. He promised to do his best to protect residents of Ingushetia from the unlawful actions of the "siloviks" and find the abducted persons. As a result, the protesters believed the promises of the new minister and unblocked the intersection.

On September 19, news of the abduction of two residents of RI led to mass riots in Nazran. Two residents of the village of Surkhakhi, M.O. Aushev and M.M. Aushev, were abducted on September 18 on their way back home from Grozny. Armed men in camouflage uniforms thrusted the men into a car without any explanations and took them away to an unknown destination (see Section 4.5 of this report).

The next day several hundred people, among whom were residents of Surkhakhi, relatives of many abducted persons, the victims of arbitrariness and people sympathizing with them, blocked one of the crossroads in Nazran with concrete blocks. They demanded to find and return the Aushevs, to investigate the abductions and murders of other residents of Ingushetia and punish those responsible. In the afternoon, officers of the republican OMON, following an order from the above, tried to disperse a rally and unlock the intersection. Clashes broke out accompanied by beatings of the protesters, throwing stones at the policemen, fire from automatic guns and guns of armoured machines over the heads of people. OMON has been forced to retreat.

At about 2 a.m. the protesters learned that the two abducted men had been released. The people unblocked the intersection and went to their homes.

As a result, the authorities had made it clear to the residents of Ingushetia that law and justice had no loger any significance. And the residents of Ingushetia had shown to the authorities that their patience was coming to an end.

Protest actions were held not only by the relatives and fellow villagers of the abducted.

On June 21 at 11 am in front an unauthorized picket was held in front of the building of the RI Presidential Administration in Magas by the parents and children who had become victims of the mass poisonings that took place on February 28, 2007 at the Nazran vocational school No 1, a similar mass poisoning had occurred in stanitsa Shelkovskaya in the Chechen Republic in 2006, the victims thta time were schoolchildren. All the children poisoned in Ingushetia continued to suffer from attacks of an unknown illness, sometimes the emergency ambulance had to be called several times a day. To date the doctors have not been able to declare a clear diagnosis. The participants in the picket demanded from the authorities to provide qualified assistance to the victims. The protesters wanted to see the President of RI. They were received by the deputy head of the presidential administration Askhab Myakiev. He accepted a statement from the parents and promised to convey it to the President. Inside the premises of the presidential administration the children again began to suffer attacks, an emergency ambulance was called and the kids were taken to the republican hospital.

It should be noted that all the protests that have taken place were unauthorized. Official rallies and pickets are practically banned in Ingushetia, as the Head of the Republic has repeatedly said to the press.

Over the following days the same web-site would regularly publish updated information on the upcoming rally. Meanwhile, starting from November 12, the access to this web-site for users from Ingushetia was blocked. Those wishing to access the Ingushetiya.Ru web-site users were automatically redirected to a pornographic site.

According to what a correspondent of "Gazeta.Ru" was told by the owner of the Ingushetiy.Ru web-site Magomed Yevloyev, the access to the resource had been blocked upon a personal order of the President of Ingushetia. According to him, on November 12, the owners of the Internet provider companies of Ingushetia were summoned to the Minister of Interior of RI Moussa Medov. They were ordered to block the access to the web-site for users in the territory of the republic. The owners of the companies were forced to obey and change the DNS server settings, said Yevloyev⁵¹.

The press service of the President of Ingushetia categorically denied any involvement in the closing down of the Ingushetiya.Ru web-site yet did not exclude the posibility of that "many people were tired of seeing to how this web-site was denigrating the regional and federal authorities aggravating the situation in the republic"⁵².

The Internet providers of Ingushetia JSC ITT and Telecom Ltd refuted the information about restrictions for the residents of the republic on access to the Internet, and in particular, to the Ingushetiya.Ru web-site⁵³.

On November 14, redirection of visitors of the Ingushetiya.Ru web-site to a pornographic site stopped while all attempts to access the web-site would meet with the "Unable to display the page" result. Thus it has remained ever since, despite all the promises of the provider companies "to investigate the reasons" and "resolve the problem".

On November 14, an anonymous "organizing committee" made a statement which indicated that it did not intend to announce to the residents of Ingushetia, who exactly was encouraging them to come to the rally as well as act in conformity with the law governing mass events:

"The organizing committee for the rally said that due to the opposition on the part of the authorities, as well as the attempts of the law enforcement agencies to establish the identities of the members of the organising committee, a decision has been made to hold the rally on November 24 without submitting the required application to the administration of the municipality, in the territorial jurisdiction of which the rally is going to take place"⁵⁴. The precise place of the rally in the city of Nazran was also kept secret, the intention of the organizers was to announce it only a few hours before the actual event. Meanwhile, the Ingushetiya.Ru web-site reported that 10,000 participants were expected to turn up. This course of actions gave the authorities the full right to declare the illegality of the "Organizing Committee" as well as warn the population of the administrative responsibility for participation in an unauthorized rally.

Only on November 16 in a special statement of the Organizing Committee two of its co-chairmen were named: Mukhammed Gazdiev and Minkail Yandiev. In total, according to the statement, "20 Co-Chairmen of the Organizing Committee were in charge of the preparation for the rally". In that statement, the responsibility for all lawlessness that was happening in the republic was entirely attributed to the republican government. The next day, the deputy of the National Assembly of RI Bamatgirey Mankiev called upon his voters to take part in the rally.

On November19 almost simultaneously three documents directly relevant to the rally were made public.

The office of HRC Memorial in Nazran appealed to the leaders of the Republic of Ingushetia and to the Organizing Committee to refrain from breaking the law. Copies of the appeal were sent to the administration of the President of Ingushetia and the Ministry for National Policy of RI.

On the same day appeared "The Appeal of the Organizing Committee for the nationwide rally to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin". This appeal reported that the decision had been made to change the date of the rally from November 24 to some later date in December. The appeal claimed that only requests of some distinguished people from Moscow and of a representative of the President of the Russian Federation not to conduct this event before the elections into the State Duma of Russian Federation had become the decisive factor for postponing the rally.

Immediately after this Message appeared the Ingushetiya.Ru web-site published the "Declaration of the Web-site Team":

"In connection with the decision of the Organizing Committee for the nationwide rally on 24 November to change the date of the rally we declare our disagreement with this decision. Our web-site is ready to provide information support to other initiative groups and other movements who are going to hold the rally on November 24 ."

Thus, the team and the owner of the web-site were assuming the responsibility for holding the rally on November 24. Since then, the site has repeatedly issued statements and appeals of certain "residents of Ingushetia" concerning the upcoming rally without mentioning any specific names.

It was obvious that the Organizing Committee had suffered a split in its ranks and on November 22 "The Appeal of the co-chairman of the national rally Mukhammed Gazdiev" appeared⁵⁵:

"Dear people of Ingushetia!

A day before, on November 21, the Prosecutors of RI sent to several alleged organizers of the rally warnings on the inadmissibility of such a rally and of the possible administrative and criminal liability that the organizers might face. On the same day and in the following days the Public Prosecutor's Office of RI appealed to the population of Ingushetia through the media with the same warning. Since the organizers had not informed the authorities about the place of the meeting, its purpose, time and number of participants, the Prosecutor's Office considered that as "the rally may host appeals of extremist nature, including those calling for forcible change of the foundations of the constitutional order and violation of the integrity of the Russian Federation. This event may be aimed at public justification of terrorism, incitement of national, religious or social discord. <…> In accordance with Part 1 of Article 15 of the Federal Law On Countering Extremist Activity citizens of the Russian Federation, foreign citizens and stateless persons are subjected to criminal, administrative and civil liability for engaging in extremist activities, in accordance with the law of the Russian Federation".

A second attempt to hold a rally was made at about 11:45 am at the central bus station in Nazran. According to different estimates, from 150 to 300 people had gathered here. Most of them were young people, teenagers. They gathered near the motorway. At the square, surrounded by young men appeared.Mukhammed Gazdiev.

By that time inside the bus station there were no more than a dozen of "siloviks", of both the local and federal forces. They tried to disperse the protesters but realized that their forces were not sufficient for that and requested reinforcements, which started to arrive after ten minutes. About two hundred people arrived on three armored "Ural" vehicles, a few buses, two or three "Gazel" minibuses, several UAZ vehicles. There was also an armored personnel carrier with a banner of the "United Russia" political party on the top. The majority of those arrived were law enforcement officers of RI, nevertheless, among them were a notable number of "siloviks" sent to the republic on a mission from other regions of Russia. Blocking the crowd, they opened fire into the air. However, the majority of the protesters did not move.

The police officers approached Mukhammed Gazdiev and attempted to pull him out of the crowd but the people around stood up for Gazdiev while Mukhammed himseld was loudly expressing his indignation and was trying to explain to the policemen that he came to the rally because this summer the special services had abducted his son the whereabouts of whom are unknown to this day. Gazdiev was brutally seized by the security forces and thrown into the bus.

The people were kicked, beaten with batons, many were thrown into the arriving buses. According to eye-witnesses, several participants in the rally were taken away in an Emergency Ambulance car. Finally the police officers managed to disperse the crowd of protesters.

Then the people began to gather in small groups at different locations adjacent to the bus station square. They were immediately approached by large group of "siloviks". The gatherings would be dispersed, but immediately appear again at another location.

At the scene of the rally, other than those directly involved, it was a lot of random witnesses, onlookers who watched from the side. The policemen who were dispersing the protesters, were also chasing occasional observers, paying particular attention to those who had mobile phones with cameras and to people with photo-cameras: they were trying to catch such people and to confiscate telephones and photographic equipment.

The "siloviks" were mainly hunting teenagers of 14-16 years old, such were also beaten with batons and detained for a while. Teenagers would attempt to escape, the policemen would chase them, one boy of twelve was followed by five OMON officers. He was hit several times and attempted to be detained. The child was defended by a number of people who were near, and the officers were forced to let the boy go. At about 2:00 pm the activity of protesters began to decrease, the people began to disperse. The "siloviks", meanwhile, continued to block the bus station and control the situation.

At about 3:00 pm 70 people from among the protesters gathered at the petrol station near the bus terminal. They were immediately surrounded by the police and beaten with truncheons, a woman was hit. Several protesters were detained, thrusted into the bus and taken to the municipal department of internal affair.

This attempt to hold a protest rally was thus suppressed.

However, this rally was later followed by other protest actions.

In January 2008, the attempt to hold the next rally in Nazran and its dispersal turned into mass riots.

Particular attention should be paid to the obstacles, which the Ministry of Interior has been putting on the way of journalists. The journalists that had arrived to Ingushetia to give coverage to the events taking place there, were detained and brought to the municipal department of internal affairs. For all that the journalists were usually treated politely yet not released to the town until the evening. In doing so, the policemen claimed they were forced to carry out an order of the republican authorities.

Prosecutor of RI Yuri N. Turygin gave the following comments on the 24 November events in Nazran:

The prosecutor said that an attempt to hold an unsanctioned rally in Nazran with 10-15 people participated had taken place. The slogans were frankly provocative⁵⁸.

The words of the Prosecutor were virtually word for word repeated by the Ingushetian First Deputy Minister of Interior, Sergey Seliverstov. He said that "in Nazran a police duty team has today detained seven young people⁵⁹ who had violated the public order⁶⁰".