NALCHIK,
Russia, October 23, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) –
Muslims in the southern Russian city of Nalchik decried on Sunday,
October 23, police humiliation, abuses and excessive beatings for no
apparent reason other than being Muslims.
"There
is complete police arbitrariness... and judges get their orders
against Muslims by telephone," Ali Pshigotizhev, 55, an
unemployed former radio presenter with a charcoal-grey beard, told
Agence France Presse (AFP).
Pshigotizhev's
son, Zaur, a 29-year-old a taxi driver, was arrested on suspicion of
taking part in a wave of attacks on government buildings in the city
on October 13.
The
attacks, claimed by Chechen fighters, left 12 civilians and 36 Russian
troops killed.
Many
female relatives of the attackers gathered outside the main government
building in central Nalchik asking for the return of their loved ones'
corpses for burial.
Under
anti-terrorism laws, the bodies of fighters and others killed in armed
clashes are buried secretly on prison territory.
Complaints
Many
Muslims in the area complained that their sons, brothers and nephews
were deprived from getting jobs or university places because of their
religious beliefs.
"They
call us the Wahhabists. They are people and we are non-people,"
said Marina, 19, declining to give her surname for fear of police
reprisals. Her 33-year-old uncle took part in the attacks.
Wahhabi
is a religious school taking roots in Saudi Arabia, and blamed by the
western media for anti-Western violence.
The
aunt of Khasbulat Kerefov, who has gone missing during the attacks,
said her nephew "saw so much injustice in the police force that
he decided to retrain as a lawyer."
Over
the past few years, dozens of petitions from local Muslims have been
written by lawyer Larisa Dorogova, denouncing repressive police
measures against them.
"The
police mocked them," Dorogova said.
Excesses
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"There were excesses... On one side there was harsh pressure from the authorities, on the other a very low quality of life," Kanokov said.
|
Arsen
Kanokov, the newly appointed-leader of the province, admitted that
there were some excesses against local Muslims in the area.
"There
were excesses... On one side there was harsh pressure from the
authorities, on the other a very low quality of life."
Kanokov
added that a decision by the Russian authorities to close down six
mosques in the area had also fed anger among local Muslims.
He
had earlier said that religious repression was to blame for the recent
unrest in the region.
Khazrat-Ali
Dzasezhev, Kabardino-Balkaria's chief imam, agreed.
"Our
republic was not ready for freedom of religion," he stressed.
Interior
ministry officials and Islamic officials at the state-sponsored
central mosque built last year, however, denied massive police abuse
against local Muslims preceding the attacks.
"Maybe
there were some individual cases of police abuse but these were
exceptions and they should be resolved according to the law,"
said Khaizir Otarov, a mosque official.
Russia
has a Muslim population of 20 million people concentrated in north of
the Caucasus and in the central parts of the country.
