Memorial declares one more participant in the March 2019 protest in Ingushetia a political prisoner
Magomed Khamkhoyev is facing unsubstantiated charges of inciting violence not dangerous to life or health against law enforcement officers during the forcible dispersal of a peaceful rally in Ingushetia in March 2019
Memorial Human Rights Centre considers Magomed Khamkhoyev, a defendant in the ‘Ingush case’ (a prosecution of a number of opposition activists), a political prisoner. We believe the criminal prosecution of Khamkhoyev is based solely on his participation in a peaceful protest against the actions of the Ingush authorities and demand his immediate release.
Context: how the Ingush authorities suppressed the March 2019 protest
In the autumn of 2018 Ramzan Kadyrov and Yunus-Bek Yevkurov signed an agreement, ‘On the Establishment of the Border…,’ under which part of the territory of Ingushetia was transferred to Chechnya. The document was prepared in secret. A very large part of the population of Ingushetia rose up to protest.
On 26 March 2019 a 20,000-strong rally was held in Magas, the capital of Ingushetia, demanding the resignation of the Ingush leadership and the holding of free elections. The authorities agreed to allow the rally to last for one day, but some of the participants declared the protest ‘indefinite.’ On the morning of 27 March several hundred people remained on the square. These protesters did not pose a threat to public order and did not interfere with traffic, pedestrians or the functioning of institutions.
Nevertheless, officers of the National Guard sent to Ingushetia from other Russian regions attempted to disperse the protesters. Investigators working on the case claim that ten law enforcement officers were injured in clashes that followed.
After the clashes in Magas, criminal proceedings were initiated and dozens of protesters were arrested. More than two dozen demonstrators have already been convicted on charges of using minor forms of violence against law enforcement officials and eight protest leaders have been charged, without evidence, of organising this violence. Memorial Human Rights Centre has declared those convicted or remanded in custody in the case to be political prisoners.
The charges: from violence to incitement of violence
Magomed Khamkhoyev was arrested in early April 2019 and charged, along with more than three dozen other participants in the Magas rally, of using violence dangerous to the life or health of public officials under Part 2 of Article 318 of the Criminal Code.
However, the investigating officers concluded that Khamkhoyev did not commit this crime. Despite this, he was not released. Instead, at the beginning of 2020 new charges were brought against Khamkhoyev for an offence under Part 4 of Article 33 in conjunction with Part 1 of Article 318 of the Russian Criminal Code (‘Incitement to violence non-threatening to life or health against public officials,’ punishable by up to five years in prison).
The Investigative Committee claims Magomed Khamkhoyev ‘persuaded’ the rally participants to use violence that was not dangerous to life or health against law enforcement officers. Giving in to this persuasion, the demonstrators ‘struck on various parts of the body’ 65 National Guard officers and one Ingushetian police officer ‘with their hands and feet, stones, chairs, sticks, metal turnstiles or pieces of them, as well as other improvised objects.’ As a result, 58 of these officers experienced physical pain, while eight suffered bodily injuries that did not harm their health such as abrasions, contusions and bruises.
The trial has begun.
Why Memorial considers Khamkhoyev a political prisoner
According to international standards of freedom of peaceful assembly as set out in documents of the UN and the European Court of Human Rights, a state must not forcibly disperse demonstrations if the actions of its participants do not pose a danger to the public, even if the event has not been authorised. Therefore, we consider the attempt to forcibly disperse the rally in Ingushetia on 27 March 2019 unlawful.
After reading Magomed Khamkhoyev’s indictment, we discovered that only one witness, ‘I. Iliev’, whose true identity was kept secret, allegedly heard Khamkhoyev’s calls to violence at the rally. ‘I. Iliev’ testified that he had heard Magomed Khamkhoyev calling on activists to ‘stand to the end, even if we have to fight.’
Moreover, the investigators only ‘discovered’ this witness in December 2019, nine months after the investigation began, and his testimony was contradictory. In his first interrogation on 16 December 2019, Iliev claimed that he saw Khamkhoyev ‘walking among young people and talking.’ Iliev ‘approached a group of young guys’ and asked them ‘what M. M. Khamkhoyev wanted, to which they replied that M. M. Khamkhoyev had asked everyone to stand to the end….’ Two days later, during an interrogation on 18 December, Iliev changed his testimony. He said that he could not describe the people who had conveyed Khamkhoyev’s words to him because he was afraid of them. The indictment cites his testimony in this way: ‘In fact, he heard all these words from M. M. Khamkhoyev himself.’ The investigation has no other evidence of Magomed Khamkhoyev’s guilt. We suspect that the testimony of the witness ‘Iliev’ is fabricated, as it appears improbable. However, even from this it is impossible to conclude unequivocally that Khamkhoyev incited violence.
It is outrageous that such an absolutely groundless and unsubstantiated indictment was approved by the deputy Prosecutor General and submitted to court.
Thirty-four-year-old Magomed Khamkhoyev was not one of the organisers or ideological leaders of the rally in question. As far as we know, he is not a civil society activist. As the investigation showed, he did not participate in clashes with law enforcement officials on 27 March 2019. We therefore believe there was only one reason why Khamkhoyev was arrested and prosecuted, namely to put pressure on his close relatives. He is the son-in-law of one of the main persons accused, the Ingush elder Akhmed Barakhoyev, and a nephew of Isa Khamkhoyev, the Mufti of Ingushetia. The then head of the region, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, had been in conflict with the Mufti for several years. On the day of the rally, 26 March 2019, Yevkurov went on Ingush television to name the Ingush Muftiate as the main instigator of unrest in the republic. From the beginning of April 2019, the homes of the Mufti and his relatives, along with offices of the Muftiate, were subjected to numerous searches.
Memorial believes that the aim of those behind the ‘Ingush case’ is to silence the protest movement in the republic and teach a ‘lesson’ to other Russian regions. The prosecution of Ingush opposition activists is another step towards suppressing legitimate civic activity and the rights and freedoms, not only of residents of Ingushetia, but also of Russian citizens in general.
Memorial Human Rights Centre, according to international guidelines defining the term ‘political prisoner,’ believes the criminal prosecution of Magomed Khamkhoyev is intended to forcibly end public criticism of the authorities by residents of Ingushetia and he has been imprisoned solely for the non-violent exercise of the right to peaceful assembly.
Recognition of an individual as a political prisoner or as a victim of politically motivated prosecution does not imply Memorial Human Rights Centre agrees with, or approves of, their views, statements, or actions.
More information about this case and the opinion of Memorial is available on our website.
How you can help
You can support all political prisoners by donating to the Fund to Support Political Prisoners of the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners via PayPal, using the e-wallet at [email protected].
