Moscow and Magas Trying to Keep Ingush Nation from Speaking Out, Akiyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 14 – Timur Akiyev, head of the Ingushetia office of Memorial, says that “illegal arrests and the fabrication of criminal cases are the most serious problems in Ingushetia over the last several years” and represent “an attempt by the powers ot deprive civil society of the right to express their opinion and hold meetings.”

            These are especially serious problems but there are others as well, including the failure of the authorities to address the problems of IDPs and MIAs from the 1992 conflict with North Ossetia (fortanga.org/2020/12/vlast-pytaetsya-lishit-grazhdanskoe-obshhestvo-prava-vyrazhat-svoe-mnenie-intervyu-s-glavoj-ingushskogo-memoriala-timurom-akievym/).

            Also today, Ingush activist Olga Mazurova released a statement demanding that Magas and Moscow address those problems now rather than allowing them to continue to fester (6portal.ru/posts/хусейн-чахкиев-обращение-к-обществен/ and 6portal.ru/posts/промедление-в-реакции-считать-престу/).

            These problems are attracting more attention beyond the borders of Ingushetia. Today in Moscow, several activists staged a picket action in support of the Ingush Seven, denouncing the case as a serious abuse of the Russian judicial system (fortanga.org/2020/12/moskovskie-aktivisty-proveli-pikety-v-podderzhku-figurantov-ingushskogo-dela/).

            Also today, the leaders of the independent Fortanga news agency marked the passing of British author John Le Carre whose 1992 novel, Our Game, featured a retired British intelligence officer, Larry Pettifer, who stole money from the Russian government to support the Ingush struggle for independence (facebook.com/fortangaORG/posts/720486002203524).

            In the book, Pettifer explained why he supported the Ingush in words Fortanga has now recalled:

′′ Why Ingushi? I shouldn't explain that I'm always on the side of those who don't have a voice in this world and don't care about what's happening in the market... Ingusha's right to survive is MY right and YOUR right, and the right of a free soul not to obey the abomination those who want to make everyone the same, don't care if it's communists, market pigs or vomiting party speakers with political correctness.

⠀          “Why Ingushi? Because I love their love for freedom because they had no feudals, no aristocracy, no servants, no slaves, no high or low social layers because they love the forest and climb the mountains and do much of it what we would prefer to study the problems of general security or university lectures of Pettifer...

⠀          “Why Ingushi? Because the evil that they and the Chechens caused is so undeniable that it does not require to seek any more injustice in the world...

⠀          “Why Ingushi? Because their situation is now a reflection of our unworthy behaviour in the world after the cold war, because the West, for reasons of fucking stability, does not respond to the desperate cries of people who we claimed before need protection..."