Defenders of Kushtau had their suspended sentences reduced

The Supreme Court of Bashkortostan commuted the sentences of two Kushtau defenders: Rail Abkadirov and Rustam Kinisarov. RusNews reports this.

Instead of seven years of suspended imprisonment, Abkadirov was given three and a half suspended sentences, and Kinisarova was commuted to three years and two months of suspended imprisonment to three years and one month suspended sentence. The court left the sentence of three years suspended for the third person involved in the case, Rustam Amanov, unchanged. Abkadirov also retained a fine of 30 thousand rubles.

Criminal cases were opened against the defenders of the Kushtau Shikhan in January 2021. The formal reason for the persecution was the conflict that occurred in November 2020 between local residents and the Armenian diaspora. On November 7, the police, together with special forces soldiers, roughly detained several dozen people who, as reported on social networks, were on their way to protect a participant in the conflict. According to Bashinform, firearms and bladed weapons were then confiscated from the detainees.

The defendants in the case were accused of attempted hooliganism with the use of a weapon (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code with the use of Article 30 of the Criminal Code). Kinisarov was also charged with illegal possession of weapons (Part 1 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code), and Abkadirov was charged with illegal storage of explosives (Part 1 of Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code).

One of the accused, Marat Sharafutdinov, was sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment during the investigation. The remaining three men were found guilty by the Karmaskalinsky Interdistrict Court in January.

Kinisarov’s wife reported that a weapon was planted on her husband during the search. Kinisarov himself, in December 2022, spoke in his last word about the torture that the police used on him during his arrest on November 7, 2020. According to the man, he and other detained men were beaten at the police station, and his phone was also broken.

• 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. As a result, on September 2, 2020, the government of Bashkiria declared the Shikhan a natural monument of republican significance. After this, work on the mountain stopped.
• Bashkir activists are in favor of preserving several natural monuments, the remaining shihans - Toratau, Kushtau and Yuraktau. The previously existing shihan of Shakhtau was completely destroyed to obtain raw materials by the Bashkir Soda Company. In August 2022, the police detained more than 70 defenders of Kushtau, many of them were then arrested under administrative charges.