Friday, January 15, 2021

Prosecutors Continue Presenting Information Irrelevant to Charges Against Ingush Seven

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 12 – At the first session after the holidays of the trial of the Ingush seven, prosecutors continued to insert into the record information that has nothing to do with the charges to suggest lengthy pre-trial detentions were justified and they have a real case and not just political one, according to lawyers (fortanga.org/2021/01/zashhita-liderov-ingushskogo-protesta-ukazala-na-nepodgotovlennost-obvineniya/).

            When witnesses were allowed to speak, they undercut the prosecutors’ arguments by pointing out that all seven of those now charged with organizing an extremist group and attacking siloviki had instead called on those around them at the March 29, 2019 protest to keep their actions within the bounds of the law (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/358556/).

            Meanwhile, the Kavkaz-Uzel news agency surveyed Russian experts about the Chechen-Ingush blood feud case (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/358521/). They offered three main conclusions: First, they said, the Chechen authorities had played up the possibility of a blood feud to impose even more repressive measures against Ingush in Chechnya.

            Second, both the murder and the negotiations intended to prevent a blood feud from spreading highlighted the extent to which the change of the Ingush-Chechen border remains a matter of extreme concern among Ingush who view that accord between former republic head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and Ramzan Kadyrov as an act of national betrayal.

            And third, the chief negotiators for the two sides, parliamentarians and the mufti on the Chechen one and teips on the Ingush side show that the government and the muftiate play a much smaller role in the life of Ingush society than do these same institutions in Chechnya and thus avoid getting involved where their weakness is displayed.

 

No comments:

Post a Comment