Siloviki Search House of Parents of Founder of Ingush Portal Fortanga

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 22 – In yet another example of the authorities seeking to put pressure on Ingush activists they have not been able to intimidate any other way, Russian siloviki today raised the home of the parents of Izabella Yevloyeva,  the founding editor of the Fortanga portal who now lives abroad and is beyond the direct reach of the siloviki.

            Yevloyeva’s portal has been one of the most important sources of information about the Ingush protest movement not only for Ingush but for all people of good will around the world.  The authorities have arrested its journalists, but they hadn’t figured out how to get at Yevloyeva (kavkazr.com/a/30286754.html and zamanho.com/?p=15362).

            She went to Europe in February, planning to return after two months. But the wave of arrests after the March demonstrations caused her to remain abroad. After ceasing to work as the portal’s editor in chief, Yevloyeva was able to bring her children out; and she was then able to resume her work as an activist commentator.

            Now, however, she says, “it appears that the siloviki have turned to puttiing pressure [on her] through her parents.”

            Today, her Fortanga portal carried a story suggesting that anger at the Magas government has spread beyond the borders of Ingushetia to Ingush living elsewhere in the Russian Federation (fortanga.org/2019/11/ingushskaya-obshhina-v-samarskoj-oblasti-podvergla-kritike-rabotu-polpreda-ismaila-bogatyreva/).

                Representatives of the Ingush community in Samara Oblast have expressed dissatisfaction with the work of Ingushetia’s plenipotentiary representative in that region, Ismail Bogatyryev, who has not met with or provided support to them over the almost a decade he has occupied that position. They are calling on him to resign from the post he is paid to occupy. 

            The Ingush permanent representative in Moscow has rejected the complaints of the community, saying that his office is satisfied with Bogatyryev’s work.  But when Fortanga tried to contact him to get his reaction to these complaints, it turned out that the postal address, the email address and the phone number on his website don’t work.

            The phone number, for example, leaves out one digit, making it useless for those who would like to speak to him; and the postal address lists a place that doesn’t exist.