Imams report about pressure on Tamaskhanov

Law enforcers used brute force to detain Imam Magomed Tamaskhanov and used pressure to get a confession from him concerning his alleged ties to a terrorist grouping, religious leaders claimed. They demanded from the Ingush authorities to intervene in the situation.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that Mukhammad Tamaskhanov, the imam of the mosque in Nazran, and Magomed (Mukhammad) Sultygov, the imam of the mosque in Karabulak, were detained on April 10. Telegram channels report that the imams were released on bail. According to the law enforcers’ version, Ingush imams Mukhammad Tamaskhanov and Magomed Sultygov did not report to the police that a member of a militant grouping led by Amirkhan Gurazhev had approached them with a request for help.

An appeal on behalf of the Muslims of Ingushetia, religious and public figures, in support of Ingush imams Mukhammad Tamaskhanov and Magomed Sultygov has been published in the serdalo_ingushetii Telegram channel. According to the Telegram channel’s information, Mukhammad Tamaskhanov swore in front of the imams that he had no ties to terrorists and that they have no reason to doubt his veracity.

The reason for the imam Mukhammad Tamaskhanov’s detention is his religious activities and his activity in protecting the rights of citizens, which do not go beyond the laws of the Russian Federation, the authors of the appeal believe.

They have noted that videos posted on the Internet, which claim the Mukhammad Tamaskhanov’s connection with terrorists, have been made “to denigrate his activities.” “Magomed Tamaskhanov has never been noticed in extremist inclinations. On the contrary, thanks to his educational activities, a huge part of the young people in the republic learned about the harmfulness of radical ideas,” the activists state in their appeal.

*On December 29, 2014, the Supreme Court (SC)* of the Russian Federation recognized the organization “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” (ISIL or IS) as a terrorist international organization and banned its activities in Russia.