New Year’s Eve Concert in Magas Cancelled After Deadly Attack on Traffic Police Post

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 31 – Following an armed attack on a traffic police post at the edge of Magas in which two policemen and one attacker were killed and another policeman and attacker wounded and hospitalized, Ingushetia officials cancelled the New Year’s Eve concert in Magas (gazetaingush.ru/news/novogodniy-koncert-v-magase-otmenili-iz-za-napadeniya-post-dps, https://gazetaingush.ru/news/pri-vooruzhennom-napadenii-na-post-dps-v-magase-pogib-policeyskiy-dvoe-napadavshih-ubity and doshdu.com/v-ingushetii-troe-rasstreljali-post-dps-est-pogibshie/).

            Officials said the attackers were affiliated with the Islamic State.  Republic head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov denounced the attack saying it could only have been committed by people “who do not respect their own people or republic” (gazetaingush.ru/news/kalimatov-schitaet-napadenie-na-post-v-ingushetii-neuvazheniem-k-narodu-i-respublike).

            Meanwhile, there were four other reports about developments in Ingushetia. 

Ingush teips in Kazakhstan joined with their colleagues in Ingushetia to ask Kalimatov to reappoint the current members of the republic Supreme Court (fortanga.org/2019/12/ingushskie-tejpy-ingushetii-i-kazahstana-prosyat-kalimatova-pereizbrat-nyneshnij-sostav-konstitutsionnogo-suda/).

And lawyers for Zarifa Sautiyeva, the imprisoned Ingush activist, said that jailors have refused to provide her with dental help after she began to suffer a tooth ache in the detention center (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/344165/).

Akhmed Buzurtanov, a Portal Six commentator, says that new charges against protest leaders of having formed an extremist organization are likely to touch many in Ingushetia. That is because in bringing  the charges, prosecutors said in each case that in addition to those being charged now there are “other persons not yet established” (6portal.ru/posts/новый-2020-год-для-гражданского-общества/).

 Anton Chablin, a specialist on the North Caucasus, reports in the same outlet that Ingushetia has a better record in bringing charges against those suspected of corruption than do other North Caucasus republics but that it has more such cases before than courts than does Karachayevo-Cherkesia despite having a smaller population (6portal.ru/posts/сон-закона-рождает-коррупцию/).