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IX. Public Protests and Response of the Authorities

Beginning in summer 2007, Ingushetia became an arena for public protests against abductions and killings by security and law enforcement agencies.²⁵⁶ The first protests were peaceful, but after the local authorities introduced de facto bans on public gatherings, protests began to be marked by clashes between police and demonstrators. Protesters have an obligation to obey the law and use only peaceful and lawful means to voice their discontent. However, given that the motivation prompting the rallies was the experience of systematic abuses by security and law enforcement personnel and their subsequent lack of accountability, it was inevitable that protests would be tense. The unfulfilled promises made by high-level officials to stop abductions and other violations also contributed to general frustration and heightened tension around the protests.

Evolution of the Protest Movement in Ingushetia

On June 25, 2007, up to 150 residents of the village of Surkhakhi assembled in the village’s central mosque for a spontaneous peaceful rally to condemn the June 17 special operation, during which Ruslan Aushev was killed and Magomed Aushev was abducted by security services,²⁵⁷ and express their indignation at the deteriorating security situation in the republic. Speakers at the rally largely blamed President Zyazikov for being unable and/or unwilling to put an end to lawless and violent actions of law enforcement personnel. At the conclusion of the rally, participants adopted a resolution addressed to President Zyazikov, demanding an immediate end to the killings, enforced disappearances, and abductions of local residents by security personnel, as well as the transfer of detainees to custody in North Ossetia. The authorities chose not to intervene, despite the fact that the organizers of the event had not notified the authorities about it, as required by Russian law.²⁵⁸ On June 27, however (and as described in the previous chapter), another special operation during which human rights were violated was carried out in Surkhakhi. Many local residents perceived it as an act of retaliation by the authorities.

Demonstration on September 19, 2007

Further public protests followed. The first large-scale public protest, on September 19, was triggered by the abduction of Magomed Osmanovich Aushev, a resident of Surkhakhi, together with his 22-year-old cousin, Magomed Maksharipovich Aushev, a resident of Nazran and son of Maksharip Aushev, a prominent local businessman.

As noted above, 25-year-old Magomed Osmanovich Aushev was first abducted from the village of Surkhakhi during a special operation on June 17, 2007. He was taken to Vladikavkaz, tortured by security personnel, and released. His uncle, Maksharip Aushev, arranged for him to spend several months in Astrakhan and Sochi recovering from his ordeal, joined by his cousin to keep him company. On September 18, 2007, while traveling back to Ingushetia via Grozny, the two cousins were abducted and held in a secret detention facility in Goity, a village in Chechnya.²⁵⁹

The Aushev cousins arrived in Grozny by train and called Maksharip Aushev to tell him that they should be expected in Nazran within two hours. However, just as their taxi was leaving Grozny, it was stopped by armed personnel. Both young men were forced into the kidnappers’ vehicle, which immediately took off.²⁶⁰

When the cousins failed to arrive on time, Maksharip Aushev and several other family members immediately went to Grozny and started looking for them. They were able to find the taxi driver, who shared the story of the Aushevs’ abduction with them. Being a wealthy man, Maksharip Aushev made an agreement with Chechen television to run a news-ticker saying that he was ready to pay 500,000 rubles (approximately US$21,000) for any information about his son and nephew’s fate and whereabouts. He was promptly approached by a Chechen law enforcement official who insisted on anonymity, but said that the Aushevs had been transported to an illegal prison in Goity. The official also indicated that the abduction was commissioned and paid for by high-level Ingush authorities, and that the Aushevs were not the first residents of Ingushetia to be taken to that secret prison. ²⁶¹  He took only part of the reward money from Maksharip Aushev, explaining that “the boys are already dead because no one has ever gotten out of the Goity prison alive.”²⁶²

Upon learning of their abduction, Maksharip Aushev pressed Chechen authorities to take immediate action and encouraged his relatives and supporters to organize a large-scale protest rally in Nazran. Owing to his influential status and the general frustration over the deteriorating situation in the republic, Aushev was able to mobilize hundreds of protestors, including his family members, Surkhakhi residents, relatives of the “disappeared,” and other victims of abuse by security services. At around 3 p.m. on September 19 they blocked Chechenskaya Street, one of the busiest routes in Nazran at the intersection with the railroad, and demanded the return of the kidnapped young men,²⁶³ as well as an effective and prompt investigation into other cases of abductions, enforced disappearances, and killings in Ingushetia. The protestors stopped both road and rail traffic and pledged to stay put until the release of the Aushevs. They brought food and water with them and were ready for a protracted demonstration.²⁶⁴

The Ingushetia minister of internal affairs, Musa Medov, came to speak to the protestors hoping to convince them to go home in exchange for promises to deal with the situation, as he had done to end the June 25  protest. However, this time the demonstrators were not ready to stand down. When one of Medov’s security guards attempted to take a video camera from a protestor, several women attacked him with sticks. The protestors were so aggressive that the minister and his entourage chose to depart. Subsequent attempts by the Ingushetia prosecutor Yury Turygin and several members of parliament to negotiate with the demonstrators were also fruitless.²⁶⁵

At approximately 6 p.m., local riot police officers came in armored trucks with the intention to disperse the demonstration. They advanced in rows toward the protestors, shooting into the air. The demonstrators responded by throwing stones and other objects, wounding several police. When the police tried to drive one of the trucks into the crowd, the hail of stones became so intense that the vehicle had to stop. Considering the large number of protestors and the damage that their personnel and vehicles suffered from the stones, the police had to retreat after about 30 minutes.²⁶⁶

The protesters dispersed between 2 and 3 a.m.—only after hearing the news of the Aushevs’ release.²⁶⁷ According to the Aushev cousins, the young men had been taken from the detention center at Goity to Shatoi, a mountain district of Chechnya, to be killed. However, at the last minute, Chechen law enforcers received orders to free their prisoners. The Aushevs were convinced that they would have been killed if not for the perseverance of the protestors.²⁶⁸

Government Efforts to Restrict Public Protests

The September 19 protest proved to be a turning point for the protest movement in Ingushetia. Thereafter, authorities made vigorous attempts to prevent protests from happening. Two major rallies protesting killings, disappearances, and other rights violations were held in Ingushetia in November 2007 and January 2008, and the authorities tried to stop both. They refused to sanction one of the planned rallies, whose organizers initially attempted in good faith to follow the law on public gatherings. They threatened protest organizers, and obstructed the work of journalists and human rights monitors by, among other things, expelling them from the region and detaining them. The rallies themselves were violently dispersed.

Ingush authorities told Human Rights Watch that the rallies could not be allowed because they were “provocations as opposed to demonstrations.”²⁶⁹ President Zyazikov stressed that behind the organizers of the protest rallies were “certain forces” that aspired “to turn Ingushetia into a hot spot,” supported insurgency, and wanted to alienate Ingushetia from Russia. He stated that the authorities were not attempting to prevent any genuine public assemblies but only those of purely provocative and dangerous character.²⁷⁰ 

But Russia has in many different treaties undertaken to guarantee the right to freedom of assembly.²⁷¹ As with several other civil and political rights, the right to freedom of assembly may be subject only to those restrictions²⁷² as are “prescribed by law” and “necessary in a democratic society.”²⁷³ Blanket banning of demonstrations in Ingushetia is hard to reconcile with Russia’s international human rights commitments, and could further marginalize and radicalize the political opposition, which is being deprived of opportunities to voice its views through legal means.

Under international human rights law police should avoid the use of force to break up peaceful demonstrations, even when they are unsanctioned; when the use of force is unavoidable, police must use it proportionately. While Human Rights Watch was not in a position to monitor the demonstrations described below, it has recorded several eyewitness accounts that suggest that at the very least some of the force used to disperse the crowds was excessive.²⁷⁴

The authorities’ response to the November and January demonstrations also violated the right to freedom of expression, which in this context is closely linked to freedom of association.²⁷⁵ The authorities obstructed the work of journalists and hindered the free flow of information. Similar to other civil and political rights, freedom of expression may be subject to only those restrictions which are “prescribed by law” and “necessary in a democratic society.”²⁷⁶ In its case law, the European Court of Human Rights has consistently stressed that the permissible limits that governments may place on freedom of expression are circumscribed by the interest of a democratic society in enabling the press to exercise its vital role of “public watchdog”.²⁷⁷

Demonstration on November 24, 2007

On November 9, 2007, residents of Ingushetia were struck by news of the killing of six-year-old Rakhim Amriev during a special operation (see Chapter VI, above). The events of September, when the Aushev cousins were released following a mass demonstration, gave people a sense of empowerment, and a steering committee was immediately formed to organize a protest against human rights abuses. For security reasons, the steering committee members initially chose to act anonymously, but published an appeal on the opposition website Ingushetiya.ru (not to be confused with the official republican government website, www.ingushetia.ru), calling for a large-scale rally aimed at bringing human rights concerns to the attention of the Kremlin.²⁷⁸

Finally, on November 12, access to the opposition website was blocked for all users in Ingushetia. ²⁷⁹

On November 14 the rally’s steering committee announced that as law enforcement agencies were attempting to prevent the demonstration, including by means of identifying and threatening the organizers, they could not observe the law and provide official notification of the event.

The demonstration was planned for November 24. On November 19 the steering committee sent an open letter to then-President Vladimir Putin stating that the demonstration would be postponed until after the December 2, 2007 Russian parliamentary elections, in response to a request by federal officials.²⁸⁰

Ingushetiya.ru promptly published a statement disagreeing with the postponement and promised support to those willing to implement the original plan.²⁸¹ Seemingly in response to that statement, on November 21, the republican prosecutor’s office disseminated a warning about the potential liability for organizing an unsanctioned demonstration. The warning emphasized that as the steering committee did not notify relevant officials about the time and venue of the event, the authorities had strong grounds to suspect an extremist agenda.²⁸²

On November 23, Mukhmed Gazdiev, one of the steering committee members and the father of the disappeared Ibragim Gazdiev,²⁸³ Maksharip Aushev, and several other activists were taken to the Ingushetia Ministry of Internal Affairs and threatened with prosecution. According to Aushev, Musa Medov, Ingushetia minister of internal affairs, was personally trying to convince them to call off the demonstration²⁸⁴

Kidnapping of three journalists and a human rights advocate

Also on November 23, three Russian journalists and a prominent human rights defender, all of whom were traveling in Ingushetia and planning to cover the November 24 protest, were abducted from their hotel rooms in Nazran by unknown armed servicemen, beaten, and threatened with murder. At about 9 p.m., approximately a dozen armed men in masks stormed the Hotel Assa and attacked Oleg Orlov, head of Memorial, and REN-TV journalists Karen Sakhinov, Artem Vysotsky, and Stanislav Goryachikh. The assailants pushed them face down on the floor, searched their rooms, and took their laptops, cell phones, clothes, money, videotapes, and other equipment.²⁸⁵

According to Oleg Orlov, the Assa Hotel is guarded by the patrol police of the Ingushetia Ministry of Internal Affairs. That evening, however, at approximately 9 p.m., they received orders from their commanders to abandon their post, and left the hotel unprotected.

The attackers forced all the male personnel in the lobby of the hotel to drop to the floor, made the female staff stand against the wall with their hands above their heads, and examined the guest registration log, evidently looking for the names of specific individuals.²⁸⁶

When the attackers entered Orlov’s room, they pointed their submachine guns at him and threw him to the floor. They asked why he was in Ingushetia. Orlov informed them that he was traveling for work and had the appropriate identification documents. He tried to say that their conduct was unacceptable and immediately received a kick to his side. The assailants collected his belongings, put a black plastic bag over his head, and dragged him downstairs, ignoring his requests to put on warm clothing and shoes. Later, Orlov learned from the three REN-TV journalists that they were treated in a similar manner.²⁸⁷

Orlov was forced into a car and heard the other three people being dragged into it. They were driven away. The kidnappers said to the four men that they were suspected of illegal possession of explosives. Finally, the vehicle drove off the road and stopped soon afterwards. Orlov and the journalists heard a command, “Take them out of the car one by one. Terminate them with a silencer.”²⁸⁸

Orlov, Sakhinov, Vysotsky, and Goryachikh were pushed out of the car to the ground and beaten. Vysotsky passed out from the beating. Finally, the assailants ordered their victims to remain still on the ground—“Whoever gets up before we leave will be shot dead”— and warned them to “get out of Ingushetia” once and for all.²⁸⁹

The four men found themselves in a deserted rural area. The ground was covered with frost. All of them were dressed very lightly and two of them were barefoot. Still, they managed to walk to the nearest village, Nesterovskaya, which is close to the Chechen border. Neither Orlov nor the journalists were able to observe the protest rally.²⁹⁰

On the evening of November 24, the REN-TV journalists were received by the president of Ingushetia and the minister of internal affairs. President Zyazikov expressed his regret and promised that the perpetrators would be held accountable promptly. On the same day, the prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation and registered Orlov, Sakhinov, Vysotsky, and Goryachikh as victims. However, an investigation was launched only in connection with “breech of inviolability of one’s dwelling,”²⁹¹ “obstructing legitimate professional activity of a journalist,”²⁹² and “robbery carried out by a group of persons in collusion with the use of violence, which did not entail danger to life and health.”²⁹³  The prosecutor’s office did not open any investigation into offenses such as unlawful detention, issuing of death threats, or even abuse of office by members of the law enforcement.²⁹⁴

This case received extensive media coverage and prompted expressions of concern by several international organizations²⁹⁵ and high-level officials, including US President George W. Bush and chair of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights Dick Marty.²⁹⁶ The head of President Putin’s Human Rights Council, Ella Pamfilova, intervened with Russian authorities demanding a prompt and effective investigation. Condemning the crime, Pamfilova wrote in her letter to the Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika, “One inadvertently comes to a conclusion that either Ingushetia authorities do not control the situation in the Republic, or it was an unlawful act carried out on the orders of certain government officials … I urge you … to take all possible measures to establish the truth.”²⁹⁷  

It is important to note that at this writing— more than six months after the crime—the investigation has not been completed. Moreover, Ingushetia’s prosecutor, Yuri Turygin, told Human Rights Watch that the investigation has found no evidence to support allegations that the attack was aimed at preventing journalists from reporting on the protest. He also stated that the investigation had no information confirming the involvement of security and/or law enforcement personnel in the crime. President Zyazikov stressed to Human Rights Watch that he could view the abduction of the journalists and the human rights defender only as a “provocation” by forces that aspire to discredit Ingushetia’s authorities.²⁹⁸

The demonstration

At around 10 a.m. on November 24 the first participants attempted to gather at Concord Square in Nazran. Their attempts were thwarted by the presence of numerous armed servicemen who had blocked the square in advance. Finally, between 150 and 200 people, many of them relatives of the victims of recent violence, assembled for the demonstration at the central bus station of Nazran at about 11:45 a.m. Later, reinforcements, including riot police, fired their weapons into the air and then beat the protesters with batons to disperse them.

Observers from Memorial told Human Rights Watch they saw the police beating people and using electroshock weapons. Several protesters were taken to hospital for their injuries. Police detained and later released about two dozen people, targeting in particular those with cameras and video recording equipment; police also tried to confiscate their equipment. According to eyewitnesses, teenagers were also especially targeted by police, beaten with rubber batons, and forced into police vehicles. Observers from Memorial saw a boy as young as 12 or 13 being chased by five riot policemen. The child was hit with a baton and would have been detained had it not been for the intervention of a group of adult protestors.²⁹⁹

Mukhmet Gazdiev was among those attacked by police. An elderly man missing both arms since birth, Gazdiev could not possibly have put up any resistance. That did not stop the police from treating him very roughly. Mukhmed Gazdiev told Human Rights Watch,³⁰⁰

They [police] beat me up. One serviceman—I think he was Russian—hit me right on the head, and my hat fell into the mud. And I could not do anything because, with no arms, you cannot defend yourself in a physical confrontation. One of them threw me into their bus. In my condition I could not grab onto anything, and the bus has very sharp corners. I knocked my temple on the metal and passed out. Fortunately, I only fainted for a moment. Some Ingush policeman picked my hat from the ground, cleaned it up a bit, and gave it back to me, but I was dirty all over … It was very painful.

Demonstration on January 26, 2007

The protest movement gained more support after the results of Russia’s December 2007 parliamentary elections were announced. According to official statistics, 98.35 percent of Ingushetia’s electorate voted and 98.7 percent of them cast their ballots for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.³⁰¹ Such a staggering turnout, as well as the almost unanimous support for United Russia supposedly demonstrated by the population of this increasingly unstable region, was perceived by local residents as a blatant falsification, particularly in view of independent reports of nearly empty polling stations on election day.³⁰²

Activists planned another mass rally for January 26, 2008. In an attempt to underscore that the protest was not directed toward supporting insurgents or undermining stability in the region, they chose as the demonstration’s slogan, “In support of the Russian President’s efforts against corruption and terrorism.”³⁰³ The demonstration was to be focused on a range of social and economic problems in Ingushetia, including human rights issues.

The organizers tried to fully comply with the procedure for holding public protests by submitting notification of the planned event as early as January 11 to both Nazran City Hall and the administration of the central district of Nazran. The latter, however, refused to accept the notification delivered to their reception desk, and the protest’s steering committee had no choice but to mail it to them.³⁰⁴

On January 13 Maksharip Aushev, who was listed as one of the organizers of the demonstration, received a letter from the Ingushetia Ministry of Internal Affairs stating that the ministry had information about terrorist attacks planned specifically for January 26 and asking him to postpone the event. On January 21 Aushev was summoned to the prosecutor’s office and, inter alia, spoke directly with prosecutor Turygin, who also insisted on the cancellation of the demonstration. In the end, Aushev was presented with two prosecutorial warnings regarding his liability for any unsanctioned event. The prosecutor’s office gave a number of reasons to forbid the demonstration, among them: the organizers of the demonstration did not observe the notification procedure, even though they had provided more than 10 days’ advance notice;³⁰⁵ the proposed venue—Concord Square in Nazran—could not accommodate the supposed 10,000 participants and was off-limits for rallies due to the concentration of governmental buildings and the presence of a gas pipe; and the organizers used unlawful methods of agitation, including calling upon minors and putting leaflets under windshield wipers of vehicles.³⁰⁶ Some of those arguments may have been legitimate;³⁰⁷ however, it is clear that the authorities were plainly intent on preventing the demonstration from taking place. Aushev was immediately charged with an administrative violation for “breeching the proscribed order for organization or conduct of a rally, demonstration, march, or picketing.”³⁰⁸

On January 25, referring to the necessity of preventing possible terrorist attacks, the Ingush authorities imposed a counterterrorism regime in several districts of Nazran and other areas.³⁰⁹ The regime included a wide range of restrictive measures stipulated by counterterrorism legislation, which gave authorities a legal pretext to prevent potential demonstrators from gathering in public places and to use force against and detain those who would dare show up for the event.³¹⁰

On January 26, the neighborhood of the Concord Square was blocked by military vehicles and law enforcement patrols in protective gear. Up to 50 protestors, mostly young people, including minors,³¹¹ approached the square at around 10:30 a.m. Police started pushing them back, using rubber batons, tear gas, and gun shots directed in the air. In response, demonstrators threw stones and petrol bottles at the police. The building of the newspaper Serdalo caught fire, apparently as a result of petrol bombs being thrown at it.³¹²

By 11 a.m. the crowd was dispersed. Police detained some individuals, beat them, and dragged them into police vehicles. Several dozen observers, including journalists and human rights defenders, watched the developments from the side of the square.³¹³ Two Memorial Human Rights Center staff members, Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya and Timur Akiev, were among those attempting to monitor the demonstration. Several police officers threw them to the ground when they saw they were using a video camera. They took away their camera and mobile phone, forced them into a police vehicle, and delivered them to the Nazran Police Department. Sokirianskaya told Human Rights Watch that Akiev was ill-treated by special police officers during detention. Both of them were held at the Nazran Police Department until 9 p.m. They were interrogated as witnesses to “mass riot” by police, the prosecutor’s office, and the Federal Security Service, and had their photographs and fingerprints taken. Despite their repeated requests, police did not allow them to contact their lawyer until 6 p.m.³¹⁴

Eight journalists who had come from Moscow and St. Petersburg to report on the events in Ingushetia were also detained.³¹⁵ The police confiscated their video, photo and recording equipment, as well as identification documents. One of the eight, Danila Galperovich ofRadio Liberty, told Human Rights Watch that he was roughly handled by police and shoved into a police car when he attempted to ask a police officer how many people were injured in the clash between the law enforcers and the protestors. The journalists were held at the Nazran Police Department and interrogated as witnesses to the demonstration. Galperovich told Human Rights Watch that in the evening, the rapid reaction unit (SOBR) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation arrived at the Nazran Police Department to “deport” the journalists from the “counter-terrorist operation zone for the sake of [their] security.” The correspondents were then taken to Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia, in armored vehicles.³¹⁶ When commenting on the situation during his meeting with Human Rights Watch, President Zyazikov expressed his frustration with journalists who come to the region “to film the Molotov cocktail show and present it as a public protest.”³¹⁷

Two Ingush journalists, Said-Khussein Tsarnaev, a local photo-correspondent of RIA-Novosti, a major Russian wire service agency, and Mustafa Kurskiev, a local correspondent of two Moscow-based print media, Life of the Week  and Your Day, suffered more severe treatment. They were detained at about 11 a.m., when filming the burning Serdalo newspaper building. Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya of Memorial witnessed the detention of the journalists and stressed to Human Rights Watch that police severely beat Kurskiev when detaining him. The journalists spent the night at the Nazran Police Department. According to Sokiryanskaya, they were denied food, water, and access to counsel.  Kurskiev needed medical assistance and was not allowed to see a doctor. The next morning, the journalists were transferred to the temporary detention center (IVS) in Nazran and threatened with arson charges. That evening, they were sent back to the Nazran Police Department and released around 9 p.m., owing to strong pressure from Russian and international human rights organizations and the media.³¹⁸

On January 27 the Ingushetia prosecutor’s office reported that eight journalists from outside the region were detained in Nazran and expelled from the “counterterrorism operation zone” in full compliance with the counterterrorism law’s provisions regarding a counterterrorism operation regime.³¹⁹  Thirty-nine individuals were detained by law enforcement for alleged administrative violations and 19 of them were found guilty of “breeching the proscribed order for organization or conduct of a rally, demonstration, march, or picketing”³²⁰ in administrative court hearings, and sentenced to fines.³²¹

In the aftermath of the demonstration, 10 of the organizers were charged with “organization of mass unrest.”³²² Among them was Maksharip Aushev, who was seized by armed personnel in masks and camouflage uniforms on February 14, 2008, forced into a car without license plates, and delivered to the remand prison in Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkaria).³²³ On May 23, 2008, after the period of his pretrial custody was extended three times, Aushev began a hunger strike demanding a fair and impartial judicial review of his case.³²⁴ On June 5 the Supreme Court of Ingushetia ruled to release Aushev and the other detainees. Instead of being released, they were suddenly taken to the remand prison in the city of Pyatigorsk (Stavropol province). Three of the detained men were released the following day, and the others, including Aushev, were finally released on June 7.³²⁵  Opposition activists who had been planning to carry out protest rallies on June 6 to demand the release of Maksharip Aushev and the return of the first president of Ingushetia, Ruslan Aushev, called off the planned events but pledged to hold a mass protest rally once they finish gathering signatures in support of the Ruslan Aushev’s return to power.³²⁶