Residents of Chechen city of Shali forced to attend pompous mosque opening

The participation in the opening ceremony of the "Muslims' Pride" Mosque in Shali was mandatory for employees of budgetary organizations, local residents informed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the opening of a mosque in Shali on August 23 became the key event of the celebrations of the 68th birthday of Akhmat Kadyrov. The opening ceremony of the mosque was attended by tens of thousands of people, including members of 43 foreign delegations from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Palestine, the United Arab Emirates and the CIS countries.

"At the instruction of our bosses, we went there; it was necessary to ensure a huge crowd," said Ramzan, an employee of an enterprise in the Shali District.

In his turn, Shamil, a resident of Grozny, said that he came to Shali on his own initiative, since he regarded it as "a duty of every Muslim."

"They made it very beautifully ... Ramzan Kadyrov has headed the Chechen people; and every day everything is becoming better here," Sayd-Emin Azimov, an elderly resident of Chechnya, said on air of the "Grozny" TV channel.

In the opinion of Mikhail Roschin, an Orientalist, it was important for Kadyrov to show that there are quite a lot of Muslim believers in the republic.

The attraction of budget-funded officials and employees to public events is "the style of modern Russia, not only of Chechnya," Alexei Malashenko, a political analyst, has noted.

Let us remind you that residents of Chechnya have repeatedly reported about forced participation in various actions organized by the authorities, such as rallies or subbotniks.