Ingushetia Nationality Minister’s Attempt to Justify Himself Backfires

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 13 – Ruslan Volkov, who was recently named Ingush republic nationalities minister and got into trouble for telling imams not to raise the republic’s dispute with North Ossetia, tried to justify himself in a new video clip but only made matters for himself worse.

            This time, he told all those connected to the Internet that he had made his earlier requests because the imams had been talking about Ingush who “lived on the territory of the Ossetians.” But as numerous commentators pointed out, “the Ingush have never lived on the territory of the Ossetians.” The Ossetians took it from them with Moscow’s help.

            Others said that such an error reflected his lack of experience with and knowledge about the republic’s situation and demanded that he be fired if he doesn’t decide to resign and leave the republic on his own (youtube.com/watch?v=_BdsDN79OUU&feature=emb_rel_err and zamanho.com/?p=15963).

            Meanwhile, the first two Ingush activists accused of using force against the police were sentenced. The first, Seit-Magomed Nalgiyev, was given a term of 16 months but will be released on December 28 on the basis of time served. Ramazan Nagiyev was sentenced to four months in a prison camp (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/343500/ and doshdu.com/vtorogo-arestovannogo-uchastnika-ingushskogo-mitinga-prigovorili-k-1-4-godam/).

            According to the Memorial human rights organization, as of this date, 12 Ingush are awaiting trial in the Zhelenovodsk city court, with four likely to be tried in the coming days and eight others either tried or have their time in detention extended into next year (memohrc.org/ru/news_old/v-ingushetii-vyneseny-pervye-prigovory-po-delu-o-mitinge-v-magase).

            And in another act of repression, the Russian justice ministry added two Ingush NGOs, the Genesis Foundation for Social Development and Legal Initiative added to the list of “foreign agents. Both have been associated with protest leaders (meduza.io/news/2019/12/13/ingushskiy-fond-genezis-priznali-inostrannym-agentom).