In their last plea, Ingush activists explain background of protests

The defendants in the "Ingush case" have compared their prosecution to repressions of Stalin's time and named the underlying reasons for the mass protests that gripped the republic in 2018.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that since November 2020, a court in the Stavropol Territory has been considering the case against the leaders of Ingush protests, who are accused of creating an extremist community.

On November 23, at the travel session of the Kislovodsk City Court held in Yessentuki, five of the seven defendants presented their last pleas to the court.

The defendants compared their prosecution with repressions of the Stalinist period. In her speech, Zarifa Sautieva recalled that she is a historian and had dealt with the repression topic professionally, while working at the Memorial Museum of Victims of Political Repression in Ingushetia. "It's completely obvious to me where these 'patterns' were taken from. The investigators ... just followed the templates of their predecessors, NKVD (the abbreviations means the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) officers. And these people – both then and now – were and are sure that they have no need to collect proofs, and that the court in any case will make the right decision," Ms Sautieva has stated.

In their last pleas, the activists pointed out that the reason for the people's discontent, which resulted in protests, was not only the border agreement, but also the obvious dominance of corrupt officials in the republic. According to Musa Malsagov, the entire Ingush people had a sharply negative attitude towards the authorities and those officials who "like worms" were eating away the body of Ingushetia.

The defendants also spoke about the interrelations of Caucasian nations. Thus, Bagauin Khautiev said that the situation around the border should not affect relations of Ingushes with Chechens. "There are people who want to incite discord between the two nations, so that they dislike and hate each other. But they will not succeed," he has stated.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on November 25, 2021 at 02:43 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.