In Ingushetia, human rights activists give different estimates to militants' amnesty

Ingush human rights activists find the intention of Ingushetia's authorities to hold peaceful dialogue with militants' helpers to be a stabilizing factor and think that the amnesty is necessary. At the same time, they assess the system of "pardoning", offered by the authorities, as difficult to implement and inefficient.

"I've no idea how this work will be organized. How can head of local administration and district militiaman act? How and by what attributes will they define who is a true helper?" Timur Akiev, head of the HRC "Memorial" in Nazran, asked the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

According to Mr Akiev, if we treat every person who sheltered a relative not knowing about his criminal intentions as a helper, then "all the people in the republic are helpers."

Timur Akiev is sure that any guilt should be proved in the court, including complicity to militants.

Magomed Mutsolgov, head of the ANCO "Mashr" and a member of the advisory board of the office of Russian Ombudsman believes that amnesty is desirable not only for participants of illegal armed formations (IAFs) but also for their helpers.

"However, what the authorities offer is unrealistic and inefficient. Everyone who took part in armed resistance should get a chance to come back to peaceful life without any preconditions or follow-up shadowing; they should not go periodically to get checked by district militiamen. Same with the helpers. Otherwise, nobody will agree to such half-amnesty without guarantees," said Mr Mutsolgov.

In his opinion, the most humane type of amnesty is to appoint a deadline, by which militants and their helpers should surrender. "And all the crimes accomplished by them prior to that deadline should be pardoned," Magomed Mutsolgov said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The human rights activist believes that prosecutions of relatives of IAF members should be stopped. "It's wrong when a person is dismissed from work only because his relative is at war in the mountains. Militiamen are often dismissed only for this reason," he said.

Magomed Mutsolgov also suggests that not only militants should confess of their crimes, but law enforcers as well. "Power agents should in the same way admit their crimes. They should tell whom where and how they tortured and killed, and where they buried their victims. It'll be equally fair," he has noted.

Mr Mutsolgov is also sure that the amnesty is necessary for the convicts of involvement in IAFs, "because the majority of criminal cases against them were forged." "A person who gave a lift to somebody, not knowing that his passenger was a militant, is imprisoned for 15 years. While Budanov, for example, who committed grave crimes, was amnestied," he has added.