Refusal of Ingush Police to Attack Protesters Leads Belarusians to Ask: “Might Ours Do the Same?”

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 14 – The continuing conflict in Ingushetia is casting a larger shadow than anyone might have thought possible. The latest example? An Internet portal in Belarus has asked whether Belarusian police might follow the Ingush example and not follow orders to attack demonstrators (belaruspartisan.by/politic/460586/).

            Also today, Russian officials announced that the two men the siloviki had killed in Tyumen in what is billed as a counter-terrorism action has prompted an Ingush website to deny the two were terrorists, to describe this action as a genocide, and to place the blame on Yevkurov for forcing people to leave the republic to find work (zamanho.com/?p=6349).

            And in a third development far from Ingushetia, 30 members of the Ingush diaspora in Stockholm held a demonstration to demand the ouster of Yevkurov and justice for all those his regime is now holding on trumped up charges, no charges or in undisclosed locations (fortanga.org/2019/04/v-shvetsii-proshel-miting-protiv-repressij-v-ingushetii/).

            Meanwhile, in Ingushetia itself, leaders of the protest movement sought to keep young people from taking radical actions that Yevkurov and Moscow might use to justify the use of force against the national movement (fortanga.org/2019/04/video-aslan-girej-hashagulgov-ugovarivaet-molodezh-osvobodit-trassu/).

            Also, detentions were extended, new charges were lodged against leaders of the protest in order to hold them for longer periods, and some prisoners were shifted from their home areas to other places not yet announced. All this has frightened Ingush who are now making justice for prisoners a key demand (fortanga.org/2019/04/ahmedu-barahoevu-i-muse-malsagovu-naznachili-dva-mesyatsa-v-ivs/ and fortanga.org/2019/04/liderov-protesta-po-nadumannym-prichinam-ne-vypustili-na-svobodu-posle-10-aresta/).