Paul Goble
Staunton, February 2 – In his latest letter from the detention center in Pyatigorsk, Barakh Chemurziyev, one of the Ingush Seven, says that comparisons between the Navalny protests now and the Ingush ones in 2018-2019 are perhaps inevitable their similarities are superficial and their differences profound.
Only at the most abstract and formal level are they similar, he says. The Ingush protests were local and narrowly national; the Navalny ones all-Russian, and the Ingush never called for Putin’s ouster; but the Navalny ones made that their central point, the political prisoner says (fortanga.org/2021/02/svoi-sredi-chuzhih-i-chuzhie-sredi-svoih-zapiski-iz-sizo-barah-chemurziev/).
But there is a much more fundamental difference, he continues, in how the powers that be reacted to the demonstrations in Ingushetia and how they have when the protests occurred in Moscow and other Russian cities. It is “not hard to notice that there was a sharply differentiated approach” to the two protest waves.
The reaction to the Ingush protests was, Chemurziyev says, “much harsher, more total and more inadequate -- even though the meetings in Ingushetia had a narrowly national character that the tone of those taking part was loyal to the existing leadership of the country.”
Moreover, “the Ingush protest was not covered in the federal media of Russia,” while the Navalny actions were given prominent play. Arrests in Ingushetia were carried out in the form of “a counter-terrorist operation,” while officials in Moscow and Russian cities at least followed the rudiments of law.
Those arrested in Ingushetia were in violation of Russian law sent to jails in other republics and regions for investigation and trial. But at least so far, Russian investigators and prosecutors in the Navalny matter “are strictly observing the principle” that requires trying people near where they were accused of committing the crime.
Ingush activists arrested have been charged with attacking police and participating in an extremist community, but elsewhere, the authorities have limited their chargers to “exotic paragraphs of low and medium gravity, such as the violation of the sanitary regime and the involvement of minors in political activity.”
And when it comes to sentencing, Chemurziyev says, none of the Ingush accused received a suspended sentence or fine and “all without exception were sentenced to serve their time in general regime colonies.” No extenuating circumstances were considered, a complete contrast to what has happened with the Navalny demonstrators.
Because of these differences, the Ingush Seven member says he has “always said and will say that there is a law enforcement and judicial practice for the country and there is a separate distinctly territorial variety for citizens of Russia who are residents of the republics of the Caucasus.”
Moreover, Chemurziyev continues, “this vicious practice exists with the silent agreement and indifference not only of official structures but Russian society as a whole.” One expects that from an authoritarian and imperial regime, but it is not what one would hope for from those Russians who consider themselves “liberal and democratic.”
“I don’t want to think this,” he concludes, “but a firm conviction is being created that on the issues of dislike and distrust of residents of the Caucasus, the points of view of liberals and the reactionaries coincide.”
Meanwhile, in the latest session of the court where Chemurziyev and his six fellow defendants are being tried, two more witnesses have failed to support the prosecutions charges and instead of insisted that the Ingush Seven did no wrong, lawyers for the seven say (fortanga.org/2021/02/poterpevshie-po-delu-liderov-ingushskogo-protesta-otkazalis-ot-pretenzij-k-podsudimym/).
Tragically and for all the reasons Chmurziyev writes from his jail cell, the absence of evidence of their guilt is unlikely to keep the powers that be from having the judges find them guilty.
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