Ingush Lawyers Wants Russian Constitution to Allow Forced Transfer of Territory in Cases Involving Repressed Peoples

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 3 – The Ingush regional division of the Association of Lawyers of Russia is calling for the Constitution to be amended with regard to the transfer of territory between federal subjects. Now, that requires mutual agreement. But the Association wants an exception established for cases involving repressed peoples and their rehabilitation.

            Otherwise, the federal subject which received land when a nation was deported and its republic abolished can prevent the full rehabilitation of the latter simply by refusing to give its agreement, as in the case of North Ossetia with regard to historically Ingush lands in the Prigorodny district (aurri.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1006:pismo-predsedatelya-ingushskogo-otdeleniya-ayur-ayupa-gagieva-o-popravke-v-konstitutsiyu-rossijskoj-federatsii&catid=37:novosti&Itemid=101).

            The Union of Repressed Peoples of Russia supports this proposed amendment (aurri.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1007:soyuz-repressirovannykh-narodov-rossii-podderzhal-zakonodatelnuyu-initsiativu-ingushskogo-otdeleniya-ayur&catid=37&Itemid=101).

            But in an indication that Moscow doesn’t and that the proposal is not going forward, Sergey Khaykin, an advisor to the head of the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, says that the idea, while understandable from the Ingush perspective, would create serious problems (fortanga.org/2020/02/sergej-hajkin-popravki-v-konstitutsiyu-vyzvany-nedovolstvom-ingushskoj-obshhestvennosti-demarkatsiej-granitsy-s-chechnej/).

            Meanwhile, there were two other Ingushetia developments worthy of note. On the one hand, Anzhela Matiyeva, an Ingush activist, posted on Facebook an open letter to Vladimir Putin asking him to personally intervene in the cases of the Ingush detainees. She said she had been inspired by Putin’s decision to pardon an Israeli citizen (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/345468/).

            And on the other, the editors of the Ingush paper Serdalo denounced the recent claim by Vladimir Lagkuyev, an Ossetian activist, that ethnic Russians were fleeing the North Caucasus because of fears of attack by the Ingush.  That is simply nonsense, they say (serdalo.ru/zhalkij-lepet-patriota-iz-restorana/).

            They add that Lagkuyev is positioning himself as a defender of Christian Ossetia because he himself comes from Muslim roots. By talking in this way, he distracts attention in his republic from his own faith.