The social-political situation in Dagestan is heating up: an infinite series of murders of social activists, officials and the police officers continues. On December 15th in Makhachkala the general director of “Freedom of Speech” Ltd, the initiator of the independent newspaper Chernovik, Gadzhimurad Kamalov, was killed. On December 18th in Kaspisk the colonel of the border department of the FSS of Russia in Dagestan, Magomed Radzhabov was killed.
“Everybody understands that officials, social activists, the police officers and journalists will be killed. The question is who is next,” the head of the youth environment monitoring group in Dagestan, expert of the Islamic Research Center of the North Caucasus, Ruslan Gereyev, told VK. He emphasized that number of detected cases of such crimes is zero.
“The elections passed. The ruling party, United Russia, is a winner again, but people’s life hasn’t become better,” Gereyev said. According to him, 70% of Dagestan economy is shadow. “They try to convince us that investors are attracted, but nobody will invest real money into republic’s economy,” the expert said. In the young republic there are few youth projects, young people are left to themselves. Some political leaders use it in their interests. “Confrontation between the police and militants will grow, it probably will undergo together with massive anti-governmental protests and sabotage,” Ruslan Gereyev thinks.
The analyst of Chernovik, Magomed Magomedov, told VK that a permanent low intensity civil war is taking place in the republic. The society cannot consolidate and settle its problems. The authorities cannot react adequately at challenges and threats. “We need the national idea. Liberal values written in the constitution don’t work,” Magomedov thinks.
The next day after murder of Gadzhimurad Kamalov editors-in-chief of republican newspapers, representatives of social organizations decided to establish the Civil Committee on Investigation of Journalist Murders.
They urged the mass media to allocate newspaper space and broadcast time for regular information about investigations of journalists’ murders. But views on all-republican meeting on future Friday were divided. The representative of the Journalists Council of Dagestan Ali Kalamov proposed to foram a working body at first – the Civil Committee, which will decide when and where to hold the meeting.
According to the journalist Maksim Shevchenko, meetings should be held simultaneously in Makhachkala and Russia. He says that people in Moscow don’t know much about the situation in the republic. The information should be spread in political and social circles through open platforms, for example, conferences in RIA Novosti and Interfax. He thinks that representatives of Dagestan should participate in them and try to influence the situation in Dagestan through Moscow.
The journalist, member of the Public Chamber of Dagestan, Alik Abdulgamidovm says that in Dagestan the most free media: “Other regions have no such variety of opinions. Journalists do not let themselves write all truth there. Now we can see what is price for freedom – blood of our colleagues. Journalist society is not consolidated, that is why they murder us.” He considers that the authorities should be interested in investigation of Kamalov’s death, and it will be a mark for their work. Demonstrations are not effective, according to Abdulgamidov. Journalists should work with their own weapon – raise problems of murders regularly and demand their investigation.
Musa Musayev, Makhachkala. Exclusively to VK
