Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 21 – The seven
Ingush protesters under arrest who were bussed to Stavropol to undergo
psychiatric exams have refused to take part in them because the questions they
were asked took the form of accusations rather than inquiries, their lawyers
say. The authorities said if they didn’t agree, they would be sent to more
distant places for new exams.
Since the Ingush protests began, the
authorities have used jails in other republics to hold them to make it more difficult
for their lawyers to prepare their cases and to keep them isolated from their
friends and supporters, in violation of Russian law. Now, the powers that be
are extending that illegal practice to psychiatric examinations (kavkazr.com/a/30225179.html and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/341460/).
If Ingush prisoners are dispatched
hundreds or even thousands of kilometers from their homeland, that in itself
will be a form of torture intended to intimidate them and force their cooperation.
Unless they get support from other Russian Federation human rights groups, the
Ingush detainees face very difficult prospects.
Meanwhile, there were two other
Ingush developments today worthy of note. In the first, investigators reduced
charges against Khasan Katsiyev when they found they could not produce enough evidence
to support their original ones. Now, if convicted, he faces no more than six months
in prison and not the ten years he faced earlier (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/341420/).
And
in the second, the acting mayor of Magas, Magomet Marziyev, left his post after
serving only a month. No reasn was given
and it appears it was not related to the protests but rather to conflicts over
property in the elite. But his departure highlights the problems new republic
head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov is having finding new cadres (akcent.site/novosti/6236).
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