Alekseeva: authorities in Ingushetia terrorize the population

Liudmila Alekseeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, believes that Ingush authorities are terrorizing their population in the manner of Stalin's repressions of 1937. She said it in the press conference on September 22 in the Independent Press Centre in Moscow on the results of her visit to this North Caucasian republic.

"Today, the situation in Ingushetia looks catastrophic," said Liudmila Alekseeva. "People are kidnapped, tortured and murdered. It is all done under the pretext of fighting terror."

Liudmila Alekseeva said that President Zyazikov believes that the opposition, which exists in his republic, is linked with the terrorist underground movement; however, she is sure that this is not the case. The authorities are pushing Ingushes into opposition and even into underground with their own hands, Ms Alekseeva thinks.

In her conversation with President of Ingushetia, the human rights defender touched on the recent murder of Magomed Evloev, owner of the oppositional website "Ingushetia.Ru", having emphasized that she did not see a person who would believe that this murder was occasional.

According to her story, this topic was also discussed with the public prosecutor of the republic. He had reported that the investigation was conducted on the case, and they knew everyone who was in the car (in which Evloev was fatally wounded on August 31). The investigation is also underway in two other directions: a political and customized murder.

Advocate Musa Pliev, who was present at the press conference and who represents the interests of Evloev's father, who was recognized to be a victim in the criminal case on his son's death, reported that the investigation of the case can be finished by the end of September.

Human rights activists have two answers to the question what the federal authorities need this terror for. The utilitarian aim is to create the atmosphere of total fear by means of terror and to ensure by doing so the stability of the political regime in this Caucasian republic.

The second aim, which is not advertised, is to master, with Ingushetia as a model, like earlier with Chechnya, the mechanisms of suppression by force of any civil protest, in fact, the technologies of practical setting up dictatorship, which then, if necessary, can be spread all over Russia.

The Radio Liberty reports that the human rights activists, who had visited Ingushetia, say that if not to interfere into the current situation, the conflict that has arisen in Ingushetia will transform into a civil war.