

Unprecedented demonstrations have been taking place for several days in the Republic of Bashkortostan in Russia, over 1,000 kilometers from Moscow, home to a large Muslim and Turkish-speaking community whose male population has been widely mobilized to fight in Ukraine since Russia's invasion in 2022. Such popular demonstrations are extremely rare in Russia, where the slightest public criticism is punishable by imprisonment.
On Friday, January 19, braving riot police and freezing temperatures of -20°C, almost a thousand people marched in Ufa, the capital of the republic, to peacefully demand the release of environmental activist Fail Alsynov, 37, sentenced two days earlier to four years in prison for "inciting ethnic hatred."
Gathered on the Salawat Yulayev main square, the demonstrators marched, danced and sang songs in the Bashkir language. Several of them were arrested and taken away by the police. Images of the rally were widely broadcast by the independent news website Sota.vision.
It's the third demonstration to be held in Bashkortostan this week in support of Alsynov, a figurehead of the local environmentalist and nationalist movement, and well-respected among Bashkirs.
On Monday and Wednesday, almost 5,000 people gathered in the small town of Baymak, which has a population of around 17,000, in the south of the republic. The activist was being tried here behind closed doors. "What's the point of living if you can't express yourself freely?" he declared before his appearance, according to an audio recording broadcast on Radio Svoboda ("Radio Liberty", in Russian).
Clashes broke out shortly after the verdict was announced on Wednesday. The police brutally dispersed the crowd, who threw snowballs and anything else they could find at the riot police. Several demonstrators were injured. Nine arrested demonstrators were sentenced to between eight and 15 days in prison, according to a statement from the municipal court.
The ethnically diverse republic's population (37.5% Russian, 31.5% Bashkir, 24.2% Tatar) is marked by two major concerns: protecting the environment and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples.
Activists and ordinary citizens opposed a mining project on the Kushtau mountain in 2020, a site considered sacred by the Bashkirs. The company operating the site, the Bashkir Soda Company (BSK), is linked to billionaires Boris and Arkadi Rotenberg, childhood friends of President Vladimir Putin. Alsynov found himself in the Kremlin's crosshairs for coordinating protests against the project: The same year, his cultural association, Bashkort, was banned.
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