Employee of Ingush Museum fired after she took part in protest actions

Zarifa Sautieva, who worked as deputy director of the Memorial Complex of Repression Victims, has associated her dismissal with her participation in rallies against changing the border with Chechnya.

According to Ms Sautieva, the republic's authorities put pressure on the Culture Minister, who is in charge of the museum.

Zarifa Sautieva has clarified that she learned about her upcoming dismissal back in last November. She intends to challenge the Ministry's decision in court.

Musa Omarov, the director of the museum, has noted that Sautieva' work caused no claims.

"She is a high-class specialist. She has gathered a large archive of memories of witnesses to the deportation of the Vainakhs, established contacts with the museums of those regions, where residents had also suffered deportation," he said.

Ms Sautieva made a great contribution to the fact that the Memorial Complex to Repression Victims has become the best place in Ingushetia where exhibitions about nations' deportations are held, said Barakh Chemurziev, an activist of the Ingush Committee for National Unity.

Ruslan Mutsolgov, the head of the Ingush branch of the "Yabloko" Party, also sees a political component in Sautieva's dismissal. "The authorities punish people for their civil activeness. The republic's leadership has lost moral guidelines and is campaigning even against women," Ruslan Mutsolgov has stated.