14 August 2024, 19:39
Memorial plaque to repressed Chechens and Ingushes broken on Solovki
The memorial stones to prisoners of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SSPC), including those dedicated to repressed Chechens and Ingushes, have been damaged.
The activists who brought flowers to the Memory Alley on the Solovetsky Islands (Solovki), a mini-park with the memorial stones dedicated to prisoners of the SSPC, found destroyed and damaged monuments. The monument dedicated to Chechens and Ingushes was destroyed; and the plaque from the monument to Ukrainians was removed, the "Memorial" Society* has stated in the "VKontakte" social network.
As follows from the caption to the photos attached to the post, the plaque with the inscription "To the innocently murdered Vainakhs, Chechens and Ingushes" was cracked.
In his book "The Hellish Islands", Sozerko Malsagov, an Ingush activist, has mentioned elderly Chechens exiled to Solovki.
"Shortly before my arrival in Solovki ... forty very old Chechens were sent there. One of them looked out of the window, which was forbidden by some law enforcers. This was the basis for this entire group to be sent to Sekirnaya Mountain, known in Solovki as a place of torture, put into a "stone bag" and flogged with sticks until they lost consciousness. One of the old men was 110 years old. The old Chechens were exiled as hostages because of their sons, grandsons and great-grandsons who had joined the guerrilla units and waged war against Bolsheviks. The hostages themselves committed no crime," says the book, published on the website "Memories about Gulag and authors thereof".
The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in 2006, authorities informed that Chechnya officially counted over 173,000 victims of political repressions, including the victims of deportations and repressions in the 1940s and 1950s. The deportation of Chechens and Ingushes led to territorial conflicts, wars and broken families, the Norwegian Helsinki Committee (NHC) noted in an article dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the deportations.
*On December 29, 2021, by the decision of the Moscow City Court, the Russian legal entities of the "International Memorial" and the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" were liquidated. Activists of the organizations have reported that both organizations will continue their work without forming legal entities.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 14, 2024 at 04:35 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Source: Caucasian Knot
