In Kabardino-Balkaria, two public organizations of the Balkar people were liquidated by court decision

The decision to liquidate the Kabardino-Balkarian regional public organization for promoting the revival of the Balkar people “Bash-Tere” and the public organization “Council of Elders of the Balkar people of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic” was made on the same day by the city court of Nalchik on the claims of the republican department of the Ministry of Justice of Russia.

The lawsuits were filed on the basis of materials from unscheduled inspections of these organizations conducted in April 2022 at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Karachay-Balkar Republic (KBR). Both judicial acts indicate that the checks revealed numerous violations of the requirements of federal law and the provisions of the charters of organizations. Both the “Council of Elders” and “Bash-Tore” did not have exact lists of members of the societies, and “in the materials submitted for verification, there was not a single statement about joining or leaving members of the organization.” Judging by the documents, the public activists did not hold the congresses prescribed by the charter, did not publish annual reports on their activities, including on the Internet, did not hold elections of central councils and audit commissions “in the prescribed manner”, and also did not keep records of membership dues and donations. In the reports, they reported that they did not collect membership dues.

In February 2022, the Bulletin of the Balkar People newspaper published an appeal to the President of Russia, as well as to the leaders of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, the Federation Council and the Prosecutor General of Russia. The text of the appeal, according to the inspectors, was “aimed at demanding Balkaria’s secession from the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and the formation of a new subject of the Russian Federation,” which directly contradicts the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Constitution of the KBR. The appeal was signed by Ismail Sabanchiev on behalf of the “Council of Elders of the Balkar people of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic” and Battal Sozaev on behalf of “Bash-Tere”. True, by the beginning of the trial, Battal Sozaev had already died. The case was considered in his absence, and Ismail Sabanchiev did not appear in court on the subpoena.

As a result, the court decided to satisfy the claims of the Ministry of Justice to recognize the Balkarian public organizations as having ceased their activities as a legal entity and to exclude them from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

Balkarian public figure Muradin Rakhaev, who participated in the creation of the “Council of Elders of the Balkarian people” in 2006, explained to Kommersant that both organizations had not represented the Balkarian people for a long time, although they acted on their behalf. In particular, when they filed lawsuits against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights. As for “Bash-Tere”, in fact it was an organization – an understudy of the “Council of Elders”, “consisting of one person – the chairman, who was also a member of the “Council””. According to Mr. Rakhaev, the public was ready to choose another leader of the organization two years ago, but the republican authorities prevented this and Ismail Sabanchiev remained in charge of the “Council of Elders”, and in the end achieved the effect that the entire Balkar people were extremists.

The decision to liquidate the “Council of Elders of the Balkar people of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic” was made by the Supreme Court of the Republic in May 2010 at the suit of the KBR prosecutor’s office. She found in the activities of the council “signs of extremism in the form of propaganda of the exclusivity of citizens on the basis of nationality.” However, in July of the same year, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation restored activities of the “Council of Elders of the Balkar people”.

Alexandra Larintseva, Pyatigorsk