Russian Court Again Extends Detention of Ingush Protest Leaders, Denies Release Appeals Based on Pandemic Fears

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 3 – A Stavropol court has extended to June 25 the detention of three of the eight Ingush activists accused of organizing an extremist organization to undermine the Ingush government as well as that of another activist who is accused of attacking the police in last March’s protest (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/347907/).

            Meanwhile, now that the first coronavirus case has been confirmed in Ingushetia, lawyers for Zarifa Sautiyeva working with the Memorial Human Rights Center have appealed to the courts to allow her to be released from detention and be placed under house arrest. Three other protest leaders have already done so. None has been granted (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/347890/ and fortanga.org/2020/04/zashhita-zarify-sautievoj-zayavila-hodatajstvo-o-ee-osvobozhdenii-iz-pod-strazhi-v-svyazi-s-ugrozoj-zabolevaniya-koronavirusnoj-infektsiej/).

            And Zarina Sautiyeva, who is now is in Geneva on a human rights fellowship and who has spoken out for the Ingush language and people at the United Nations, says that she doesn’t know what her future will be but that if she feels she is needed in Ingushetia, she will return (daptar.ru/2020/04/03/если-почувствую-что-нужна-в-ингушети/).

            Such an attitude is typical of many Ingush who live outside the republic or even outside the Russian Federation but who have indicated that they will come back if their nation requires it, yet another indication of the way in which the consolidation of the Ingush people at home is now extending to the diaspora as well.