For Protesters, ‘Ingushetia is Like Moscow Only Worse’ Because Outsiders Don’t Focus on It, Aleksandrova-Zorina Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 15 – With regard to corruption and repression, “everything is Ingushetia is just like it is in Moscow” and a major reason behind that pattern is that “Russian society, opposition activists and foreign correspondents for some inexplicable reason don’t give a damn” about what is happening in the North Caucasus, Elizaveta Aleksandrova-Zorina says.

            There are waves of repression in Russia that “almost no one mentions,” the Moscow journalist and filmmaker says, “not because they are taking place far from Moscow but because they are occurring in the North Caucasus” and thus are judged unworthy of anyone’s attention (fortanga.org/2020/05/repressii-o-kotoryh-vse-molchat/).

            “Even opposition figures, liberals and left of center people view this region as a patriarchal one, mostly Islamic and unstable, with contempt. Even foreign journalists who do cover protests in Russia somehow about these events remain silent.” And because they do, officials in the region feel free to be ever more brutal.

            If one considers what has been taking place in Ingushetia the last several years, she continues, he or she will see that the number of activists being mistreated is comparable to the numbers in Moscow and that local journalists like Izabella Yevloyeva and rights activists like Magomed Mustolgov have been forced to flee.

            Those who look will see that the powers that be violate the law on a regular basis, behave corruptly, and impose the same fines and even longer prison terms on activists that their Moscow counterparts face.  But somehow, the Russian opposition and Western journalists see no reason even to look, let alone to cover what is happening in the same detail.

            Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus infections continued to climb, reaching 1407, an enormous number in a republic with fewer than 500,000 residents.  The number of deaths from the disease stands at 35 (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/349654/), a reflection of the fact that the republic is among the bottom three federal subjects in terms of medical supplies (capost.media/news/obshchestvo/in-the-three-regions-of-the-north-caucasus-federal-district-recorded-a-deficit-of-personal-protectiv/).

            Also today, doctors at the Magas clinic who have been accused by Moscow politicians of performing genital mutilation surgeries denied the charges (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/349665/).