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Tatar Muslims Allege Russia Of Heavy-handed Security Tactics
NABEREZHNYE CHELNY, Russia, Nov 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Russian authorities have been exercising heavy-handed surveillance of Tatarstan, a central republic where around half the population are Muslims, news agencies reported.
Many Tatars are angered by Moscow's support for the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan and dozens of young Muslims have expressed an interest in traveling to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported said some Tatar women have volunteered to serve in Afghanistan as nurses.
"With the [September 11] attacks, America has found a good reason to attack Islam in Afghanistan the way Russia attacked it in Chechnya," Malik Ibrahim Yulduz, head of a Qur'anic school in the industrial city of Naberezhnye Chelny, told AFP.
Malik studied in Saudi Arabia for four years. Last year, he returned to take over the school, which the Russian authorities are now seeking to close under the claim that one of the alleged organizers of bomb attacks on Moscow apartment blocks in September 1999 had studied there.
"We have never had anything to do with terrorism," said Malik, who was quoted by AFP. "With their reasoning, they should also shut down Kazan [the Tatarstan capita]) University, because Lenin, the biggest criminal of the century, studied there. Islam is coming under pressure all around the world. Russia is unfair to Muslims."
According to official figures, Russia is home to around 20 million Muslims. The republic of Tatarstan, situated on the Volga River, has 3.8 million inhabitants, 51% of whom are Muslim. About 43% of the population are ethnic Russians, predominantly observing the Orthodox Christian rite.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the number of mosques in the republic has increased from 17 to more than 1,000, according to AFP figures.
Tatarstan's nationalists have also protested the U.S. bombardments on Afghanistan.
Protests against the U.S.-led strikes emerged during the annual October 15 rally in Kazan, marking the day in 1552 when Tsar Ivan the Terrible captured the city - considered by nationalists to be a "day of mourning".
"Since [President Vladimir] Putin came to power, our freedoms have regressed. The national minorities ministry has been abolished, and Muslims are not happy," said Rafis Kashapov of the Tatar Center at Naberezhnye Chelny.
Seventy people have approached his organization asking if they could go to fight in Afghanistan, "for Islam, against America or for money," he said, sitting in his office, which is adorned with a poster of Mecca.
Heavy-handed surveillance by Russian intelligence services and routine harassment could drive some Muslims underground, Kashapov warned.
"They will study the Qur'an in private apartments, and that will be more dangerous because there's no knowing what kind of teaching will be dispensed," he said.
Abdarashid Izrat, deputy head of the Russian Islamic University said the first group of home-trained imams (religious leaders) would graduate next year. He added that the institution now lacked qualified teachers because of a recent decision by the Russian authorities to bar teachers of Arab origin, AFP said.
"They were cultivated men, not criminals," Izrat protested. "It is regrettable because after 70 years of Communism we lack teachers of Arabic and qualified theologians" to teach the university's 140 students.
"We no longer receive any money from abroad," he added. "The state exercises very strict control. As a result, many young people travel abroad to learn. That could create problems, because they may import ideas that are foreign to Islam."
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