A court in Bashkiria ordered arrests of 34 defenders of the Kushtau Shikhan

The Ishimbay City Court of Bashkortostan ordered administrative arrests to 34 defenders of the Kushtau Shikhan, detained on August 15 during the dispersal of their camp. This was reported by Apology of Protest.

In total, during the clashes that day, more than 70 people were detained , several dozen of them were kept in the district department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs until trial. According to human rights activists, decisions were made on August 16 and 17, the terms of arrest ranged from 1 to 15 days.

According to the court file , yesterday the court made a decision on 36 protocols on failure to comply with police demands (Part 1 of Article 19.3 of the Administrative Code), and today hearings were held on five more activists.

Defenders of the shihan said that on Saturday, August 15, when they were blocking the passage of special equipment to the work site, private security company employees, along with “some athletes and bikers,” began to snatch them from the crowd and hand them over to the police. During the dispersal, private security officers used gas canisters, activists complained.

The next day, the head of the republic, Radiy Khabirov, arrived in Kushtau and announced the suspension of work. “I will try to ensure that there are no more arrests,” promised . he

In 2019, Shikhan Kushtau was given over to the development of the Bashkir Soda Company. Local residents have been protesting against the work for several months. They consider Kushtau to be part of a single mountain range, which also includes the shihans of Toratau and Yuraktau. Greenpeace explained that the shihans are very different from the surrounding landscapes; in Kushtau alone there are more than 40 species of rare animals.