Yevkurov-Kadyrov Border Line Officially Registered with Russian Land Agency

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 8 – The border accord signed last September 26 by Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Ramzan Kadyrov which transferred 26,000 square kilometers of Ingush territory to Chechnya and which sparked protests that continue to this day was officially registered by the Russian government’s land agency (rbc.ru/politics/08/05/2019/5cd1b3579a7947f88ac02a71).

            That supposedly formally closes any discussion of the border, but Ingush opposition figures are unlikely to accept that. Instead, this latest Moscow action will only further exacerbate tensions in Ingushetia with the opposition increasingly adding the central Russian government to Yevkurov as its enemy.

            Other developments in the last 24 hours, witnesses came forward to report that when the siloviki arrested a group of human rights activists several says ago, the masked men said to them “you are doing your job; we are doing ours,” an indication of how perfunctory the republic police are functioning (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5CD2974067D31).

                Meanwhile, the Yevkurov dragnet has now reached Minsk where Ismail Nalgiyev, coordinator of the Ingush Choice organization, was arrested on his way to the Czech Republic. His lawyer says that it is almost certain that the Belarusian authorities will extradite him to Russia where he will face serious punishment (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/335233/, kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/335236/ and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/335240/).

            Also today, the Supreme Court of Kabardino-Balkaria ordered that two Ingush opposition leaders, Musa Malsagov and Barakh Chemurziyev, remain in jail until at least June 11. They had sought to be released on their own recognizance until trial, but the authorities have turned that down (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/335245/).

                And a study, prepared by Taizila Chabiyeva of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology concluded that “social networks have become the chief mediator of the Ingush protests, and their use of the Russian language has brought these protests to the federal level” (caucasustimes.com/ru/mediatory-ingushskih-protestov/).

            Instagram and Facebook have been especially important, she says; and efforts to close off these channels have failed, leading Ingush activists to find workarounds and making them even more radical and committed to continuing their protests against Yevkurov and his repressive regime.

            Because it is the beginning of Ramadan, Muslims, echoing the calls of the Ingush opposition, are appealing to the Ingush authorities to show mercy and release the political prisoners they now  hold (zamanho.com/?p=7456).