Roland Oliphant

RussiaProfile.org

Maksharip Aushev, a leading Ingush opposition figure and human rights activist, was murdered on October 25 as he drove through the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. His associates insist that his killing was connected to his human rights and political activism.

But although he had been a strong critic of former President Murat Zyazikov, he officially retired from political activism when Yunus-bek Yevkurov was appointed Ingush president last year.

The details of the killing are hazy, but it seems that gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons from an overtaking car, killing Aushev immediately.

Before Aushev died he claimed to have narrowly avoided an attempted kidnapping on September 17. And when it comes to a motive, the investigators are spoilt for choice. Aushev was also an opposition politician and a successful businessman. By Monday investigators had announced they were looking into five possible reasons, including his commercial affairs, links to organised crime, and the "murder of rioters in Nazran at the end of 2007." His associates, however, are pointing to his involvement in human rights work, nodding in the direction of the security services.

Aushev's murder is at least the fifth of a public activist from the region this year. In January, Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer involved in several Chechen human rights cases, was shot in Moscow. In July, Memorial human rights activist Natalya Estemirova was abducted in Chechnya and killed. Then in August, the bodies of Zerema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov, who ran a children's charity in Chechnya, were found in the trunk of their car. They had both been shot.

"Being an independent activist in the North Caucasus is simply suicidal," said Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch.

Aushev's initiation into activism came only in 2007, when his son and nephew were abducted, apparently by members of the security services. Aushev's response was to organise a public protest in Nazran, whose participants declared that they would not return home until the children were released.

It worked - the children were released the same day - but probably only because he was "an influential man," noted Lokshina. From then on, his involvement in human rights was largely motivated by helping families of kidnapping victims who did not have his kind of leverage.

Aushev's advocacy of human rights issues, especially on abductions, certainly "made him part of the human rights club," said Lokshina. But it was always linked to his political agenda, particularly calls for the resignation of then Ingush President Murat Zyazikov, whom he accused of running a "criminal regime steeped in the killings of thousands of Ingush."

Aushev became a close associate of Magomed Yevloyev, the editor of the opposition web site Ingushetia.ru. When Yevloyev was killed in police custody in August 2008, Aushev agreed to take over the web site. President Dmitry Medvedev finally removed Zyazikov in October, and Aushev quit his web site post in November. "I campaigned for a change of power in the republic," he said at the time. "That has happened, so I am ending my public activities and will be involved in business."

President Yevkurov said that the murder of Aushev was both an attack on himself and an attempt to destabilise the republic. Aushev's decision to retire from political life epitomised the high expectations placed on Yevkurov, and his murder - especially if it turns out that security services were involved - is a blow to the new president's credibility.

Human rights groups are still inclined to give Yevkurov their backing. "We are confident that he has a lot of goodwill," said Lokshina. "The problem is that he does not have sufficient capability."

But ending human rights abuses by the security services has been as hard as tackling the insurgency the Kremlin hoped that Yevkurov could end. Yevkurov's first summer as president saw a surge in terrorist attacks, one of which put him in the hospital for several months. Yevkurov will need similar patience from both the Ingush public and the federal government if he is to survive.