Ingush National Unity Committee Tells Kalimatov National Consolidation Impossible Until Protest Leaders are Released

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 10 – In response to Ingush head Makhmud Ali Kalimatov’s statement that he wants to promote national consolidation in order to achieve progress in the republic, the Ingush National Unity Committee has issued an open letter saying that national consolidation is impossible as long as the nation’s protest leaders are in jail.

             “For an effective relationship between civil society and the authorities,” the INUC says, “it is absolutely necessary to achieve the liberation of all political prisoners detained in connection with the ‘meeting’ affair” (fortanga.org/2019/09/konsolidatsiya-nevozmozhna-pri-presledovanii-liderov-grazhdanskogo-obshhestva-i-aktivistov/).

                At the same time, the INUC adds that it supports Kalimatov’s plans to fight corruption and “expresses the hope that by the combined efforts of social institutions, organs of power and civil society, Ingushetia will be able to achieve concord and an improvement of the social-political situation in the region.”

            Meanwhile, there were three other developments related to the change of power and the state of the opposition in Ingushetia today:

·         Culture and Archives Minister Mikael Bazorkin resigned, a move that may be related to the mistreatment of Zarifa Sautiyeva whose activities he has overseen (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/340076/).

·         Sautiyeva’s lawyers say there is no basis for continuing to hold her in detention for two more months. She is not a flight risk and the authorities have not yet provided sufficient evidence that she should be tried for any crime (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/340060/).

·         Malsag Uzhakhov, the head of the detained leader of the Union of Teips of Ingushetia, has announced through his lawyers that he will not attend any future hearings in his case because of his age and  illness (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/340056/).