Nalchik/Agency Caucasus – The Balkar Committee of Seniors was accused of extremism although it had declared itself to be fighting for the rights of Balkar people in Kabardino-Balkaria.
The Chief Prosecutor of Kabardino-Balkar rendered the Balkar Council of Seniors inactive and asked the Supreme Court to close it down because the Council was believed to be involved in extremism.
A Kabardino-Balkaria official said that the Chief Prosecutor accused in its allegation to the court the Balkar Council of Seniors of posing a real threat against the social order, civilian security, and the legal interests of both the society and the government.
The official further said that the Council would have to remain inactive until the Supreme Court issued its ruling.
The Balkar Council of Seniors came out as a form of civilian reaction against the recent local administration regulations that made it possible to invalidate three districts’ formal statuses as well as to include some fields in areas in between the villages. However, President Arsen Kanokov, among others, tends to argue that the Balkar Council of Seniors is only meant to promote separatism among the Balkar people, to provoke them into a state of disunion that was the case early in the 1990s.
Kanokov formerly argued that the Council was acting on revenge as an organization, managed by the kind of people who lost their jobs due to friction with the new administration.
KU/ÖZ/FT
