Activists Rally Against Bashkir Chief

By Valeria Korchagina

A small group of human rights activists staged a peaceful protest in downtown Moscow on Tuesday to voice their fears about the worsening human rights situation in the Volga republic of Bashkortostan.

Andrei Babushkin, leader of the human rights organization Civil Rights Committee, said the semiautonomous republic's president, Murtaza Rakhimov, had infringed citizens' rights by closing down independent media outlets and by winning reelection in an election which Russia's Supreme Court had ruled unfair.

``Judging by the reports we get from human rights activists in Bashkortostan, the number of human rights violations in the republic seriously increased in the past six months'', Babushkin said at the protest, outside Bashkortostan's plush Moscow mission.

``If we ignore these incidents like we already ignored them in Moscow and elsewhere we will return to our glorious Soviet past'', said Valentin Gefter of the Memorial human rights group.

Rakhimov was re-elected June 14, easily beating the only other candidate, his own timber minister, Rif Kazzakulov. Three opposition candidates had applied to run but the republic's election commission barred them from participating saying that signatures on their nominating petitions were forged or obtained under false pretenses.

The would-be candidates accused the authorities of dirty tricks and two of them, State Duma deputy Alexander Arinin and former Bashkortostan Prime Minister Marat Mirgazyamov successfully appealed to the Supreme Court to be re-instated. However, the election commission claimed to have found new violations and refused to register them on the ballot.

After Rakhimov's win, Arinin and Mirgazyamov lodged their appeals again with the Supreme Court. Both hearings are set for July 24. If the court rules in their favor they will have new legal grounds to contest the legitimacy of the election.

The 30 protesters, who carried placards denouncing Rakhimov and listened to speeches, also pointed to a threat to freedom of speech in Bashkortostan.

In past few months, the authorities have closed down what human rights activists say were the three last independent sources of information in the republic, some 1,200 kilometers east of Moscow. Two tiny opposition newspapers, Vecherny Neftekamsk and Otechestvo, or Fatherland, have been closed down this year.

And in early June, the authorities forced the Titan radio station off the air. The closure came soon after the station, which broadcast from Ufa, the Bashkir capital, gave air time to Mirgazyamov and Arinin.

The authorities said all three were shut down for technical reasons, but opponents say they were targeted because they criticized Rakhimov.

``Titan is not a very strong radio station, neither Otechestvo nor Vecherny Neftekamsk are famous newspapers, but it is a bit like if you go to bed and there is only one mosquito buzzing in the room, you will not sleep'', Alexei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation, told the protesters. ``Well, now Rakhimov can sleep well, there are no mosquitos left in Bashkortostan''. Simonov was skeptical that Tuesday's protest would have any impact on the situation in Bashkortostan.

``It certainly will not have any effect on Murtaza Rakhimov, the only use of such protests is to make sure people know that not everything can pass unnoticed in this country'', Simonov said.

8 июля 1998г. The Moscow Times