For Beslan — Ossetians urge to deprive Artemy Lebedev of the state award

The "Supreme Council of Ossetians" sent a statement on depriving designer Artemy Lebedev of state award and bringing him to justice for insulting the feelings of victims of the Beslan tragedy. The letter is addressed to the prosecutor The Russian Federation and the Chairman of the Investigative Committee.

Lebedev allowed himself insulting attacks against the "Mothers of Beslan" in an interview with foreign agent Yuri Dudu*. The video was posted online on August 1. In Ossetia, the designer was severely criticized.

The head of North Ossetia, Sergei Menyailo, called Lebedev a frostbitten man.

"When frostbitten people try to talk about human pain, about the grief faced by a mother who has lost a child, it turns out disgusting. When frostbitten people say that they just have to bury their children and move on, a normal person has only one question for such geeks: do you even understand what you are carrying?! For mocking the memory of the children tortured in Beslan, these frostbitten heads would simply be torn off. So that the monstrous nonsense that I heard today would not flow out of them," Menyailo wrote in his telegram channel.

The deputy of the Parliament of the republic Arsen Fadzaev called the designer a cattle and suggested that he "close his dirty mouth."

"You don't want to, fos (from Ossetian — "cattle"), simulate the situation for your children, do you? Do you want to insult people who have survived the most terrible grief in the history of modern Russia? And you probably really want to hurt the honor and dignity of poor mothers who buried their children, right?" — Fadzaev was indignant.

He added that no one is allowed to insult the heroic Ossetian women who have been living with a hole in their heart and soul for several decades.

Vice-speaker of the City Duma Soslan Bestaev called Lebedev a subhuman.

"He insulted not only our mothers and sisters, but each of us. I will express my position not as a deputy, and even more so not as a representative of one of the leading Russian parties. I speak like an ordinary Ossetian: if our paths cross somewhere, I will use all the opportunities available to me so that he will regret his words once and for all. And yes, I am ready to take criminal responsibility for this," Bestaev quotes Osnova.

State Duma deputy from North Ossetia Artur Taymazov noted that such words are unacceptable for a man and a father with many children.

"There are no separate "Mothers of Beslan", there are Ossetian people for whom this tragedy has become an unhealed wound. Artemy Lebedev insulted a whole nation. In a month, our republic and the whole country will once again remember the terrible days of 2004. Any day this month, I suggest that Artemy Lebedev come to Beslan to pay tribute to those who died at the hands of terrorists, to pay tribute to those who suffered, lost relatives and friends," said Taymazov.

He suggested that different people have different abilities to feel and empathize, so "it's never too late to become human." United Russia expressed its readiness to personally escort Artemy Lebedev to Beslan.

"Let him repeat his words where the children died," Taymazov concluded.

The North Ossetian parliamentarian Soslan Didarov found one positive continuation of the story in Lebedev's "dirty statements" — absolutely all the political forces of the republic are acting as a united front and defending the honor of the "Mothers of Beslan".

"Unfortunately, few other things are capable of consolidating opinion leaders and the public in such a way," he stated.

Civil activist and representative of the Liberal Democratic Party Alla Manokhina in her telegram channel reported that her party members had prepared a deputy request to the investigative committee demanding a legal assessment of Lebedev's statements.

And the head of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, whom Lebedev also insulted in an interview, called on mothers and residents of Beslan to join the lawsuit against the designer.

*An individual performing the functions of a foreign agent