Dagestan: organizers of mass rally explain the reason for their action

The organizers of the rally, held on November 30 in Dagestan, have convoked a press conference, where they explained why they had decided to go out to the protest.

"People have already reached the boiling point; they wouldn't withstand this lawlessness any longer," said Saadula Abusupyanov, one of the organizers of the rally in Makhachkala, and added that the kidnapping of his brothers had forced him to go out to the protest rally.

The main reasons, for which people came out to protest, are in extrajudicial killings, abductions, torture and other harassments, applied to citizens of the republic, said Ziyavudin Uvaisov, and activist of the organization "Akhlyu-Sunnah-Ual-Jama'ah".

"At the meeting with the President of Dagestan Magomedsalam Magomedov, Minister of Interior Abdurashid Magomedov, First Deputy Prime Minister Rizvan Kurbanov, which took place after the rally, the officials acknowledged the existence of such problems like kidnappings; on their part they moved a proposal to draft a mechanism, aimed at counteracting this phenomenon . We have already delivered our proposals to Rizvan Kurbanov, but so far, there's no answer," said Mr Uvaisov.

At the press conference, the organizers of the rally informed that, according to their estimates, there were some 8-10,000 participants of the rally.

According to Magomed Kartashov, Chairman of the "League of Just People", one of the reasons that forced people to join the protest was in the situation in the Kizlyar District of Dagestan, where, according to Kartashov, over 50 persons have been convicted or are under investigation.

"After we founded our organization, people began approaching us asking to organize a rally, put forward our demands to the government and to announce – standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a united front – that the republic is now full of lawlessness," said Magomed Kartashov.