Kostoev: residents of Ingushetia rally from despair unable to know the fate of their kidnapped relatives

According to the Ingush human rights organization "Mashr", starting from 2002, 197 persons are on the list of kidnapped and missing residents of Ingushetia. As stated by Yusup Kostoev, an Ingush MP, only last year 10 persons were abducted, whose fate remains unknown. Making his comment on the dispersed rally on March 23 in Nazran, Mr Kostoev noted that such protests are held because the desperate people cannot get at least any information about their kidnapped relatives.

The rally on March 23, like many other similar protest actions in Ingushetia was not sanctioned by the authorities. When asked by Yusup Kostoev about the grounds for power agents to use force to disperse the protesters, the police answered that all of these rallies were not sanctioned.

"However, the point is that to obtain a sanction to hold such action, at least a week is needed. While all the structures coordinate the issue with each other, the kidnapped person may already be dead. That is why people go out to rallies with posters, aiming to draw attention of human rights activists, officials and the public," the MP told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

He noted that participants of such spontaneous events usually demand from the authorities to establish the fate of the people who were kidnapped right on the street or from their homes without presenting any arrest warrants.

Yusup Kostoev said that when Yunus-Bek Evkurov came to power, he assured the population of the republic that all the operations conducted by power agents in Ingushetia will be mandatory held in cooperation with local law enforcement bodies.

"We could see at the very beginning that the words of the former paratrooper diverged from his deeds," said the MP. According to his story, the republic continues suffering from the practice, when at any time of the day, preferably at night, armed people in masks break into residents' houses, conduct searches, "find" material evidences - firearms and grenades - and then take away young people with them.

"Later Evkurov announced that the detainee has some attitude to separatists - in the best case. But very often the detainees' traces were lost. Sometimes, after a while, they were found dead somewhere on the roadside. The Ingush law enforcers could explain nothing; local MIA employees, as a rule, are not informed about such operations; and they frankly admit that they have no idea about the whereabouts of missing persons. As to local officials, they just promise to take all the steps to clarify the circumstances," said Kostoev.

He added that after he attended the Congress of the All-Ingush Civil Council, criticized there the republic's leadership and treated the political and economic situation in the republic as strained, he was expelled from the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party.

Mr Kostoev also said that while earlier the unsanctioned rallies and pickets against kidnappings were not dispersed by force, right on the following day after his expulsion from the above party, on October 18, 2010, the picketers who demanded to find the abducted Ali-Yurt villager Djamalail Gagiev "were treated very rudely."

"Moscow correspondents from the 'Partner Plus' Agency, who videoed the action, were shelled from a pistol. Elena Sevryukova, head of the agency, later reported that she managed to reach Evkurov. "She told him that they were under fire, to what he replied that he was in the aircraft and switched off his phone," said Kostoev.

In his comment on the rally held on March 23 Kostoev said that it was the first time that the dispersal of the protest action ended in gunfire and bloodshed. Meanwhile, as eyewitnesses said, the picketers just stood with posters "Bring Ilez back!" and did not prevent the traffic; eyewitnesses also denied the information that protesters threw stones at OMON fighters.

Several protesters were punished with five days in jail for disorderly conduct. On March 24, the magistrate court awarded Magomed and Berd Khazbiev with ten days of administrative arrest. As noted by Yusup Kostoev, this story received broad resonance not only in Russia. "Apparently this was the reason why the head of the republic ordered to send Khazbiev brothers home," said the MP.

Umar Sapraliev, an expert on Northern Caucasus, also said: "Whatever declared by the head of the republic, the lawlessness continues. People no longer trust the words and promises of local authorities; their trust has expired," he told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "I'd not assert categorically that the frequent kidnappings persuade young people to go to the mountains as a sign of protest, but this option cannot be excluded," says Umar Sapraliev.

According to Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, an employee of the Human Rights Centre "Memorial", the events on March 23 in Ingushetia dropped out of the trend towards stabilization in the Region. She also noted that this was the first violent dispersal of a rally in Ingushetia since resignation of the former president Murat Zyazikov.

Ms Sokiryanskaya notes that Evkurov has significantly liberalized the power structure and made it more accessible for the residents of the republic; it seemed that he had managed to essentially consolidate the society and reduce the activity of armed militants. As a proof of the latter, she said that recently Ingushetia saw virtually no attacks on state officials and power agents, the Voice of America reports.

"Under this apparent liberalization," said Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, "the human rights situation has remained virtually unchanged. Despite Evkurov's correct rhetoric, both abductions and fabrication of criminal cases continue."

Earlier, the head of Ingushetia Yunus-Bek Evkurov had commented the events associated with the rally on March 23. In his opinion, the participants of the unsanctioned action violated the public order and rendered resistance to law enforcement authorities.

"In our republic, there is no deterioration of the situation; however, there are charlatans, who organized the so-called rally, tried to attract attention to themselves and rendered resistance to law enforcement bodies," the head of Ingushetia said on March 24.

Mr Evkurov noted that the republic's authorities knew about the missing man, about whom the protesters spoke. "He is searched for, but this is not the reason to organize an illegal action and throw stones at policemen, while resisting them," said Evkurov.