1. Home
    2.  
  2. News
  3. Human rights, Armed conflicts, Politics and institutions

News

Pressure on Ingushetia increases as vocal critic of the Kremlin is assassinated

 
According to the official version of events circulated by the Ingush Ministry of the Interior, a police officer shot journalist Magomed Yevloyev ‘accidently’ while he was in custody · Yevloyev owned the news website Ingushetiya.ru, which is critical of both Moscow and the strongly pro-Russian Ingush Government.

On Sunday, the Federal Republic of Ingushetia lost one of its most vocal critics of the Russian authorities. Journalist Magomed Yevloyev was killed by an Ingush policeman while he was in police custody for reasons which remain unclear. Yevloyev had caught the same aeroplane as Murat Zyazikov, the President of the pro-Russian Ingush Government, and when he arrived at Nazran Airport, he was arrested and driven away. Shortly afterwards he received a single gunshot wound to the head, fired by a police officer, and died minutes later in hospital.

Some sources say that Yevloyev attempted to seize the police officer's weapon, and that the pistol went off "accidentally". Le Monde.fr cites the Ingush police as saying that the journalist was due to be questioned "as part of a criminal investigation", although the police gave no further information about his arrest. Yevloyev, born in Ingushetia, owned the popular news website Ingushetiya.ru [currently unavailable]. Ingushetiya.ru is highly critical of the Kremlin, which has been trying to close it down for months. Both Yevloyev and the webite's chief editor, Roza Malsagova, had received death threats.

According to RFE/RL, Ingushetia.ru has regularly denounced the lack of democracy in Ingushetia, as well as President Zyazikov's harsh anti-terrorist policies designed to combat Islamist extremism. In April 2008, Ingushetia.ru organized a petition calling for Zyazikov's resignation which was signed by 80,000 people. Yevloyev had recently accused the President of launching a "civil war against the Ingush people", and said that "all attempts made by Murat Zyazikov and Musa Medov [Ingush Vice-President] to intimidate me and my family are futile".

The website Ingushetiya.ru is currently unavailable, but it is still possible to consult Ingushetiya.wordpress.com, which is where users visiting the English version of Ingushetiya.ru are redirected. Information on Ingushetia is also available at http://ingush.us.

Further information: