The Ishimbay City Court re-examined the case of Ufa resident Elmir Mukhametyanov and imposed a fine of 20 thousand rubles on him under the article on organizing a public event without filing a notification (Part 2 of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) because of a car rally in memory of the deceased defender of Kushtau. This was reported by Idel.Realii.
Initially, a report was drawn up against the man specifically under this article, but, as the publication notes, at the first consideration the court reclassified the case as an article on organizing a mass stay of citizens that resulted in harm to human health or property (Part 2 of Article 20.2.2 of the Administrative Code). Then the court also fined Mukhametyanov 20 thousand rubles. Later, the Supreme Court of Bashkortostan overturned the decision on the fine and sent the case for a new trial.
Activist Grigory Gorovoy, who was present at today’s meeting, noted that during the process, police representatives actually admitted to constant surveillance of environmental activists and called them “our contingent.”
The motor rally from the Toratau shihan to the Kushtau shihan took place on August 19. Its participants paid tribute to the memory of environmental activist and Shihan defender Abdrakhman Validov, who died in 2021 due to complications caused by coronavirus. The security forces considered Mukhametyanov the “organizer” of the action, providing as evidence a video with a fragment of his speech that day. The man advised those gathered at Toratau to go to Kushtau “carefully, in a column, without cutting anyone off, without breaking anything, without using any prohibited symbols.” At the same time, Mukhametyanov himself was not among the participants in the column - he left the meeting place and went to Kushtau before the others.
The activist only learned about the administrative case against him on the day of the trial, when the police forcibly took him from Ufa to Ishimbay. First, he was brought to the police department to familiarize himself with the materials, and later in the evening he was taken to the courtroom. The meeting ended only at 11 o’clock in the evening, and Mukhametyanov was able to get back to Ufa only at two o’clock in the morning.
- 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.
- Abdrakhman Validov is one of the most famous defenders of the shihans, whom local residents nicknamed “The Guardian of Toratau.” “Idel.Realities” talked in detail about his life.