Police in Bashkiria came to the home of defender Kushtau, who is undergoing rehabilitation after a stroke

In Bashkiria, police officers arrived in the village of Petrovskoye at the home of the elderly defender of the Kushtau shihan, Farit Rakhmatullov, who is undergoing treatment after several strokes. This was reported in the KushTau online telegram channel.

The district police officer and police captain came to the activist early in the morning and demanded that he go with them to the Ishimbay police department. RusNews journalist Regina Ableeva, who came to Rakhmatullov, told OVD-Info that the law enforcement officers had left for now due to the activist’s serious condition.

“I just talked to his wife. She said that the police left because Farit was in very bad condition, they might not even be able to get him there now. He had a stroke, he is now on an IV, under the system. An ambulance was called there, which confirmed that he could not be transported. They have left for now because they don’t know what to do, but they can return,” Ableeva said

Rakhmatullov also told KushTau online this morning that he had previously suffered four strokes and is now receiving treatment at home and under the system. The arriving police officers told him that they were going to draw up a report on him for participation in an unapproved public event (Article 20.2 of the Administrative Code). According to activists, they are going to draw up the same protocol against another activist, Yulay Aralbaev.

The persecution of Bashkir activists is connected with the action that took place in Ishimbay in the park of the Discoverers of Bashkir Oil on September 26. According to the report on Aralbaev, published in the KushTau online telegram channel, 200 people took part in the action, and its participants opposed the head of the Ishimbay district, Azamat Abdrakhmanov. According to activists, Abdrakhmanov participated in the destruction of the camp of Kushtaru defenders and in obscene terms told them to get out.

• Shikhan Kushtau is a small mountain in the Ishimbay region of Bashkortostan. Local activists have been fighting for several months against deforestation for the development of soda and limestone deposits in the territory of Kushtau. Starting in August, work in the protected natural area resumed .
• Activists advocate the preservation of natural monuments, the remaining shikhans of Toratau, Kushtau, Yuraktau. The previously existing shihan of Shakhtau was completely destroyed to obtain raw materials by the Bashkir Soda Company. On August 15, police detained more than 70 defenders of Kushtau, many of them were later arrested under administrative charges. The head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov, threatened the protesters with criminal charges, but later promised that the Shikhan would be given the status of a specially protected area.
• On September 2, the government of Bashkiria declared Shikhan Kushtau a natural monument of republican significance.