Beslan tragedy triggers trumped-up cases

Human rights defenders in Russia know about 23 Muslims detained under trumped-up charges of Islamic extremism. This is what Svetlana Gannushkina, Vitalii Ponomariov, and Elena Riabinina, representatives of the Human Rights Centre Memorial and the Civil Assistance Committee for Aid to Refugees, said at a press conference in the Independent Press Centre in Moscow earlier today. The detainees are mostly Russian citizens and 10-15% of them are natives of Muslim states of the former Soviet Union.

The campaign for fabricated criminal cases of Islamic extremism became large-scale in autumn last year after the tragedy in Beslan. There are also lots of criminal cases against Muslims with drugs, weapons or explosives planted on them. This is what, for example, happened to Mansur Shangereyev in Astrakhan, according to Elena Riabinina of Civil Assistance.

Svetlana Gannushkina, leader of the Migration and Law Network at the HRC Memorialk, said she had raised the issue of fabricated criminal cases against Chechens and regarding Islamic extremism at recent meetings with Vladimir Putin. "I regret to see that the president of our huge country divides Russian citizens into 'ours' and 'not ours,'" Gannushkina said speaking about last meeting with the president in the Kremlin on 20 July. She quoted an example when they had talked about crimes of the Russian military against civilians. Putin said, "But what they are doing there, locals? Here, yesterday they killed a police officer, not ours, a Chechen." "Vladimir Vladimirovich, Chechen police officers are our police officers," retorted Gannushkina. "But they were running with submachine guns about mountains just yesterday," objected the president.

"It was Kadyrov's Heroes of Russia running about mountains," the human rights defender told journalists in the Independent Press Centre. Meanwhile, police officers in Chechnya are kamikazes, in her opinion. They are trying to protect local residents from the unlawful actions of all parties to the armed conflict.

Ismagil-khazrat Shangereyev, director of the Islamic Human Rights Centre who attended the press conference, told Caucasian Knot about the persecution of his brother Mansur in Astrakhan. Last year in summer, Mansur Shangereyev came forward in support of imam Rastiam-khazrat Kinzhiliyev who was disagreeable to Astrakhan regional mufti Nazymbek Iliazov. Earlier this year, a number of regional publications accused Mansur of Wahhabism. A criminal case under a charge of fraud was opened against him on 14 March 2005. While conducting a search of Mansur Shangereyev's place in connection with the fraud case on 21 March, police officers "found" a grenade allegedly stored in a felt boot in the entrance hall, two packets with cannabis, "Wahhabi-type" literature and video cassettes featuring an attack by Chechen rebels on a column of federal troops. Ismagil-khazrat thinks all that was planted on his brother. Mansur Shangereyev has since been in custody. There are about 50 more similar cases in Astrakhan, according to the Islamic Human Rights Centre director.

Vitalii Ponomariov of the Human Rights Centre Memorial said a person risks to be seized at the exit from a mosque and detained for five days which is enough to beat any confession out of one. Besides, "production targets" are imposed on imams with regard to turning up extremism suspects. Quoting the president's utterances, Gannushkina thinks it obvious that there are instructions as to the fabrication of Islamic extremism cases.