Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 27 – The fact that some
police in Ingushetia tried to prevent violence at a demonstration rather than
incite it and that the powers that be are now trying to convict them of
disobeying orders by doing so shows that the situation in that North Caucasus
republic is better than in Moscow where it is impossible to imagine such
things, Ilya Milshteyn says.
The Moscow commentator says that “in
Magas, where family ties are strong, the defenders of public order don’t attack
people as this would contradict local customs, but in Moscow where the bosses
fight with such prejudices, no one is a relative to anyone else (snob.ru/entry/181751/).
During a protest meeting in
Ingushetia last March, the local police “stood between those taking part in the
meeting and fighters of the Russian Guard, OMON and SOBR who had come into the
republic.” By so doing, Milshteyn says, the Ingush policemen saved “both their
own and the outsiders” from an outbreak of violence.
“The Ingush defenders of order
calmed the protesters and were concerned about the well-being of the special
troops which had been sent in – and for this the Ingush policemen were dismissed
and now they may be put in prison,” he continues – unlike their Moscow
counterparts who did not try to calm the situation but made it worse and face
no penalties for doing so.
Indeed, he says, in “the very
contemporary city” of Moscow, it is impossible to imagine that “a group of policemen,
having reached agreement in advance, would stand up as a living wall in front
of the cosmonauts somewhere on Trubnaya or alongside the Pushkin statue and not
permit mass beatings.”
Meanwhile, there were three other
Ingushetia-related developments in the past 24 hours:
·
Ingush
investigators have dropped charges against Zelimkhan Tomov and Magomed Zdoyev
that they represent a danger for the lives of police and other representatives
of the powers that be. The investigators said there is insufficient evidence to
convict them of that. Other, lesser charges remain in place (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/339526/).
·
The
Ingush Popular Assembly announced that it would consider the possibility of
retiring Isa Archakov, the body’s most senior member. It did not give a reason
but it may be that the authorities are trying to ensure that they have a
workable majority in place there (capost.media/news/policy/v-ingushetii-glava-prezidiuma-soveta-teypov-mozhet-dosrochno-uyti-s-posta-deputata/).
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