Ingushetia Protests a Revolution of Dignity like the One in Ukraine, Urusova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 30 – In a six-minute video clip, Fatima Urusova, a lawyer for Ingush activist Akhmed Barakhoyev, says the events in Ingushetia over the last 18 months have been the equivalent of “the revolution of dignity” in Ukraine and that the people in the republic have been similarly transformed (fortanga.org/2020/01/proizoshedshee-v-ingushetii-revolyutsiya-dostoinstva-fatima-urusova/).

            The attorney says that the experience of taking to the streets to protest the authorities and the authorities’ clumsy and insensitive response has awakened a sense of civic dignity among the Ingush people, changing them in ways that the powers that be will never be able to reverse however much they try. 

            Meanwhile, the siloviki staged another raid on the home of First Aid activist Asinat Aushev who has been involved in collecting personal items for the Ingush prisoners (fortanga.org/2020/01/v-ingushetii-proshli-obyski-po-delu-neotlozhki-i-magasskih-protestov/). And another detainee Khasan Katsiyev has refused to admit guilt (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/345320/).

            Now, in anticipation that there will be more protests and more crackdowns on activists, the Ingush independent news portal, Fortanga, has launched a series of articles on how Ingush should respond. The first concerns the likelihood that their telephones have been or will be tapped (fortanga.org/2020/01/esli-ty-aktivist-chto-nuzhno-znat-o-proslushke-telefonov/).

            Republic head Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov has nominated Vladimir Slastenin to be his prime minister, one outsider (Kalimatov is an Ingush but has worked mostly outside the republic naming another (Slastenin is from Kuybyshev and has worked mostly in Samara (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/345302/).

            Kalimatov did make one proposal likely to be popular: he called for the registration of the approximately 900 ancient Ingush towers to be registered and protected. Only about 100 currently are (gazetaingush.ru/news/okolo-900-bashen-v-ingushetii-neobhodimo-vnesti-v-gosudarstvennyy-reestr-pamyatnikov-istorii-i).

            And another group of approximately 300 Russian soldiers from Ingushetia who have been serving in Syria returned home. This is the fourth such returning group since troops from the republic began serving there in November 2016. Officials announced they had suffered no combat losses (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/345303/).