26 December 2024

In early 2024, the republic of Bashkortostan became the epicenter of some of the largest protests seen in Russia since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Several thousand people gathered outside a courthouse in the small town of Baymak to protest the imprisonment of Fayil Alsynov, a prominent Indigenous Bashkir rights activist. Alsynov was sentenced to four years in a penal colony on charges linked to his role in protests against illegal gold-mining works in the republic’s southeast...

The Russian rights group Memorial designated Alsynov a political prisoner in May.

The Baymak protests were followed by sweeping arrests of activists, paving the way for the largest political trial in modern Russian history.

Like in other ethnic republics of Russia, authorities in Bashkortostan maintain tight control over the region’s vast security apparatus, which allows them to execute mass arrests swiftly and with impunity. 

Meanwhile, arrested activists had little to no access to independent legal help due to financial constraints, language barriers — many of them primarily speak their native Bashkir language — and a scarcity of qualified lawyers willing to take on a high-profile case... 

More than 70 Bashkir men and women now face criminal prosecution in the so-called “Baymak case.” Among them are people with life-threatening illnesses, fathers with two or more underage children and even entire families.

Defendants are being charged with “organizing and participating in mass unrest” and “using violence” against law enforcement officials, offenses that are punishable by up to 15 and 10 years in prison respectively...

Nearly a year since the initial arrests, families of prosecuted protesters remain reluctant to speak to the press or share information about the trials, fearing publicity around their cases could do more harm than good...