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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Tatarstan fears becoming next North Caucasus |
| 2011-05-30 |
| Authorities in Tatarstan are sounding the alarm about the spread of Islamism to a region previously considered a model of religious tolerance. In November, three Islamists were killed in an armed clash with police that was unprecedented in the region. This caused fears of the appearance of armed rebellion similar to that in the North Caucasus. After the attack, the region's interior minister Asgat Safarov warned, "These insurgents from radical religious movements have arms, financing and support from foreign protectors." In April, four men were convicted of "belonging to the extremist organisation" Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami, banned in Russia in 2003. They were sentenced to several years in jail, despite being accused only of distributing radical literature. "Many students who are trained in the Arab world come back heavily influenced by an ideology that is alien to our Islam," said Marat Gatin, an official in charge of inter-religious relations in the administration of the president of Tatarstan. Ildus Faizov, the newly elected mufti of Tatarstan, said in an interview, "The Salafis and Wahhabis constitute a very great danger. There are no moderates among them. They all finish one day by taking up arms." Elected in April after the resignation of his predecessor, who was thought too lenient towards Islamists, mufti Faizov has begun a crackdown on extremist Muslim clergy in the republic. Imams are no longer freely elected but chosen from a list of candidates picked by the mufti. Many imams have already been dismissed. One of the first forced out was Nail Sakhibzyanov, an imam from the Almetyevsk district, considered an Islamist stronghold. From the Rizaetdin Fakhretdin central mosque in Almetyevsk, he said, "On April 30, the FSB (security services), police and local administrators gathered the district imams at the town hall and forced them to publicly vote me out. It was the FSB who sacked me, not the faithful." Sakhibzyanov sees no harm in associating with Wahhabis and other fundamentalists, whom he believes are wrongly accused of being a threat. "We are all Muslims," he declared. In the capital of Tatarstan, Kazan, where it is rare to see a woman wearing even a headscarf, some are sceptical that Islamists could pose a threat. The imam of Kazan's Sultan mosque, Kamil Bikchentayev asserted, "There are disagreements over doctrine, but there is no growth in extremism. Tatarstan will not become another North Caucasus." Citing the "tradition of tolerance towards Islam in Tatarstan," he refused to condemn Wahhabis or the jailed members of Hizb ut-Tahrir, whom he said "were convicted simply for having read books." Alexei Malashenko, an expert from the Carnegie Center in Moscow, also dismissed what he sees as a witch hunt against a non-existent threat. "In Tatarstan, they are getting rid of radicals who in fact do not exist. It is ridiculous to talk of a threat from Salafis," he said. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #3 Uh, uh, TATER, OR TARTAR??? There twas a day long ago when it was formally known as Tartaristan. Gut nuthin. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-05-30 20:39 |
| #2 TW, get that man a map of Bangladesh .. and a magnifying loupe... |
| Posted by: Steve White 2011-05-30 10:52 |
| #1 Tatarstan? That's like...south of Baghdad? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-05-30 09:59 |