Relatives of Ingush activists complain to President Putin about their persecution

Women from Ingushetia recorded a video appeal to Vladimir Putin. In their appeal, they complain that their relatives are being unreasonably persecuted after a rally in Magas. In its turn, the Council of Teips (family clans) called on residents of the republic to meet every week for collective prayer in support of the arrested activists.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that last night, a video appeal to President Vladimir of 93-year-old Sarazhudin Pogorov, a father of Akhmed Pogorov, the co-Chair of the World Congress of the Ingush People, was posted. In his appeal, Sarazhudin Pogorov asked Vladimir Putin to intervene in the situation with the persecution of the Ingush activists.

The annual programme "Direct Line with Vladimir Putin" has begun today at 12:00 a.m. Moscow time. Editors of the programme received more than 1.5 million appeals to the President from residents of the country, reports the Kremlin's website.

Today, the video appeal from female relatives of the Ingush activists to the Russian President was posted on the "FortangaORG" Telegram channel. The video appeal shows seven women of different ages, one of whom reads out the text of the appeal from a sheet of paper.

"We are mothers, wives, and close relatives of the political prisoners who are being [unreasonably] kept in custody because they defended by peaceful means the legal rights and freedoms of the Ingush people. Our relatives and friends, about 30 people, who were not hiding anywhere and were staying at home, were arrested with the use of armoured vehicles and masked law enforcers, who frightened us and our young children. <...> Vladimir Vladimirovich, please take the situation in Ingushetia under your personal control and set free our [unjustifiably] detained fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands," state the female relatives of the Ingush activists in their video appeal.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 20, 2019 at 12:42 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.