Federal Lezghi
National and Cultural Autonomy

A.Kerimov: Lawlessness in the South Dagestan is inadmissible!

FLNCA will do its best to protect Samur.

 

 

When Abdulatipov was elected the President of Dagestan the people hoped to have positive changes in the Republic. Abdulatipov’s anticorruption campaign was among the new president’s priorities and the people of Dagestan supported him. But lately the success in this sphere has been crashed, there were some negative processes. Some corrupted officials negatively affect the public opinion of the President. It is artificial created opposition between ordinary citizens and officials, who achieve their mercenary aims for the account of the people. One of such disputable areas is Samur forest located in the South of Dagestan.

 

Some of the officials wanted to finish their destructive project, which was financed by the state budget.  For this purpose they thought up a provocation in order to arrest local activists who were against the project.

On the 11^th of December the local people arranged a meeting in the village Samur and they invited journalists there.  But the authority classified their initiative as an unauthorized meeting and the people were dispersed by force. 19 people were arrested and 16 of them were sentenced to various terms of administrative detention. During this event many of the people were beaten, especially those who were trying to take videos of the meeting.

One of the defenders of Samur forest Hanifa Beybutov the deputy of the legislative assembly of Magaramkent was also among the arrested. He contacted me and told the following: "We were attacked by the armed police and they began to beat us. They pulled out the cameras from the guys who were taking the video. The police tore their cloth. They hurt the heads of some of them. There were also deputy ministers and they acted like ordinary police-officers. They were rude to the people and used such phrases as: "who are you?”, "no one is interested in your opinion”,   "everything has been paid” and so on. At the night the police-officers provoked the guys for the fight, offended them. One of the arrested was beaten, and the others were taken out to the cold hall where they were freezing for several hours. On the middle of the night they were taken back to the assembly hall and two of them were arrested. Our telephones were taken from us. They gave us back our telephones only in the morning. Now I will tell you about the court process. We were taken to the hall of the court one by one. Officially the court was conducted by Raisa Agabalaeva the chairman of district court, but actually the court was directed by Gamlet Efendiev the assistant of the head of the regional department of police on protection of public order. He told that he had been executing somebody’s order. The judge said the same. Efendiev told us: "You are guilty. You arrangedunauthorized meeting, showed resistance to the police officers, disturbed transport. You don't protect water, but you stir it up”. We tried to explain them and remind that we had not have banners and posters, we just had talked to journalists. But they interrupted us and continued accusing us. I talked to the judge Agabalaeva, and she said that she had obtained the order from somebody and that she regretted that had to obey and put us to prison even though we weren’t guilty.”

As soon as I got this information I called to the department of internal affairs of Magaramkent. I was assured that all the detainees would be released. But then I knew that all activists were put into the prison for different terms and no one was released. 

After that I called Djafarov who is the assistant to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Dagestan. I informed him about the situation in Magaramkent and told that the situation was very dangerous and the consequences could be very harmful for the ecology and the life of the local population. I listed all scandalous facts of the officials’ abuse of power, who frightened and beat the local people. Ramazan Dzhafarov said that he believed that the situation had been stabilized and all the problems were being solved by the special commission working there. He said that he knew nothing about the police-officers’ actions.

I told to the Prime – Minister that those officials provoke the population of the South Dagestan against the President of the Republic turning this region into an unstable zone which can blow up at any time if emergency measures to the stabilization of the situation are not taken.

In spite of this the voice of the society was not heard by the officials and the conflict was only aggravated. Works on implementation of the catastrophic plan of pumping out ground waters began. More than 200 police officers surrounded the place where the drilling works are implemented. Nobody showed any allowing documents preventing their entrance to the surrounded territory to the local people.

The arrests of activists and sentencing them to various administrative penalties for the alleged meeting in Magaramkent completely contradict the recently sounded general policy of the country. President Putin emphasized that "we have to support local communities in municipalities and the local population should be provided with a real opportunity to participate in their town and villages’ management addressing the daily problems that define quality of their lives”.

President of Dagestan Mr Abdulatipov focused on President Putin’s speech saying that the two important aspects of the Constitution such as human rights and freedoms, on the one hand, and a strong and successful state on the other, were formerly seen as contradictory, but President Putin stressed that their close interrelation was vital for the country.

The unlawful pressure on the people and their local legislative bodies as well as other unconstitutional actions violating human rights and freedoms of the Russian citizens can lead to unpredictable consequences. We see that the Constitution of the country and its laws do not work in Dagestan transforming it into a Russian analog of Somalia. The officials absolutely impudent with impunity turned into local "feudal lords” who openly violate laws and fully ignore the rights of the local people.

Although the Samur forest belongs to the State Nature Reserve of the federal level some influential state officials of Dagestan construct villas on its territory and this fact requires special investigation.

I had a chance to talk to some well-known public figures who are members of various councils under the President of Russia dealing with interethnic relations and human rights as well as members of the Public Chamber of Russia. They expressed outrage at the events around the Samur forest and the population living in the surrounding villages. Presently a joint inquiry regarding the facts of the violation of the Russian Constitution and other laws of the country is being prepared to be submitted to the Prosecutor General’s Office and Investigative Committee of the RF.

The Federal Lezgin National and Cultural Autonomy will be striving to secure public control of the situation around the Samur forest, to ensure impartial investigation of illegal actions of some state officials and bring them to account.

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