The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus

ACPC Weekly News UPDATE
October 19, 2009 – October 25, 2009

Another activist gunned down in the North Caucasus

On Sunday, October 25, Maksharip Aushev, a prominent Ingush opposition leader and rights defender was killed when unknown gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons on Aushev’s vehicle in the neighboring republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. A close relative of Aushev who was also in the vehicle was seriously wounded and remains in intensive care. Hundreds of mourners came to Aushev’s hometown to pay respects on Monday.

Funeral ceremonies are becoming a daily occurrence in this tiny yet volatile republic of five hundred thousand people, which until recent years had been a stable and relatively peaceful republic.

One of the factors responsible for violence plaguing Ingushetia today is a vicious cycle of daily attacks carried out by a well organized militant insurgency on members of security services who often retaliate with heavy handed tactics targeting young males suspected of militant activity, resulting in allegations of abductions, torture and extrajudicial executions. Increasingly, human rights activists, journalists and lawyers who expose these grave violations have been systematically targeted and killed.

Last year, another opposition leader and close associate of Maksharip Aushev, Magomed Yevloyev, was ‘accidentally’ killed when he was shot in the head while in police custody. The public outrage and mass protests organized by the Aushev led opposition resulted in the removal of Murat Zyazikov and the appointment of the current president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. With the new president in power, Aushev, whose own son and nephew were kidnapped and tortured by authorities in 2007, stepped away from politics and focused on human rights work. He also headed the independent news website Ingushetia.org founded by the late Magomed Yevloyev.

Including the latest murder of Aushev, in the last four months alone, three prominent activists have been brutally gunned down in Chechnya and Ingushetia. In July, Natalya Estemirova, a researcher with Human Rights Center Memorial and vocal critic of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, was kidnapped outside her Grozny apartment and later found dead on the side of a highway in neighboring Ingushetia. A few weeks later, Zarema Sadulayeva, an activist who headed an organization aiding disabled children and victims of the military campaigns in Chechnya, was found dead shortly after being kidnapped.