Show Trials of Ingush Protest Leaders Now Being Planned, Fortanga Portal Suggests

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 8 – Legal analysts say that the decision to try Ingush activists outside the republic to limit public support for them, to transfer those already found guilty from prison settlements to general regime colonies and to charge participants with illegitimate political goals shows that Moscow and Magas are planning to stage a show trial to try to crush resistance.

            The independent Fortanga portal says that this pattern is intended to allow the authorities to claim that not just the leaders of the movement but those who were its active participants are guilty of pursuing political goals and thus guilty of “extremism” (fortanga.org/2020/07/dlya-liderov-i-uchastnikov-mitinga-v-magase-ishhut-politicheskij-motiv/).

            That would provide the powers that be in Moscow and Magas with what they would see as justification for blocking all protests in the republic, closing down all organizations like the Union of Teips and the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) that have supported them, and possibly intimidating some Ingush from taking part in demonstrations.

            Two attorneys for those Ingush leaders still in detention say that the authorities have collected more than a hundred volumes of evidence about each defendant, something they would likely not have done if they did not want to keep the leaders behind bars and then stage a show trial to make political points.

            If they and Fortanga are correct, there are two reasons for concern. On the one hand, many Ingush will not be intimidated and thus there is the likelihood that the conflicts between the authorities and the people will escalate, possibly to the point of violence. The protest leaders have kept things in line so far; but they may not be able to in the future.

            And on the other, what the powers that be are doing in Ingushetia may presage how they plan to handle protests in other non-Russian areas of the Russian Federation and possibly even in Moscow given that what the authorities have done in Ingushetia has often been an early warning indicator or their broader plans.

            Meanwhile, the Magas district court rejected three of the four appeals by lawyers for Fortanga journalist Rashi Maysigov whom the authorities have accused of possessing illegal drugs. The only appeal the court agreed to was for an examination of the video tape of the search of Maysigov’s apartment. This case too has been continued (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/351653/).