15:39, 29 June 2023

Amid situation with "Wagner", Ingush Council of Teips urges to release activists

The Council of Teips (Family Clans) of the Ingush People has asked Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to release the Ingush activists. The council members have recalled the termination of the criminal case against Evgeny Prigozhin, the founder of "Wagner" Private Military Company (PMC), who was accused of rebellion. In their opinion, Ingush activists are imprisoned for much lesser offenses.

Magomed Pogorov, a brother of Akhmed Pogorov, has spoken on behalf of the above Council. He has recalled that on June 23-24, the fighters of the "Wagner" PMC, led by Prigozhin, plunged Russia into "chaos", but later all the charges were dropped from him and his fighters.

On June 23, Evgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) of shelling the PMC's rear positions. On June 27, it became known that the case of the armed rebellion was closed. According to the Russian FSB (Federal Security Service), during the investigation, it was found that the rebels had stopped their actions directly aimed at committing a crime, the RBC writes.

Magomed Pogorov has noted that in Ingushetia, the people who had asked to protect their violated rights have since been kept in custody for more than four years without guilt. He has added that the Eid al-Adha, a big Muslim holiday, was about to begin, and asked Putin "to free the innocent people."

The Ingush activists "did nothing illegal or unconstitutional," Mr Pogorov has stressed. "They asked to stop corruption and preserve the territorial integrity of Ingushetia, and not to transfer our lands to other regions," he said.

Mukharbek Khashtyrov, a member of the Council of Teips, has stressed that the issue of political prisoners is of great concern to republic's residents; and any event, such as the situation with Prigozhin and the "Wagner" PMC, reminds them that the participants in rallies held in Ingushetia are in jail without guilt.

Mr Khashtyrov has noted that the activists were convicted for just being present at the rally.

According to Djambulat Dzaurov, a lawyer and another member of the Council, the Ingush activists ended up behind bars, although "according to the Constitution, they defended their rights by the methods permitted by law, by means of organizing rallies."

"It turns out that public activists and respected people are extremists. And those who went on Moscow in thousands, shooting down aircrafts along the way, they don't turn out to be extremists," Mr Dzaurov has stated.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 28, 2023 at 04:16 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: СK correspondent