Security forces raid Muslim cultural center in Crimea
The representatives of Russian law enforcement agencies and regulatory authorities in Crimea came to make a search at the Muslim cultural center of the association “Creation” (“Sozidanie”) in Simferopol on September 5. The search lasted about three and a half hours.
Association’s president Muslim Devrishev said this in a commentary to Crimea.Realities portal.
“They did not tell what exactly they wanted. They said they had received operative information that our cultural center allegedly violated the law on combating extremism. So, they came to make a search,” the president of the association said.
According to him, this is not the first such search. It involved, particularly, the officers of the prosecutor’s office, the Ministry of Emergencies, and the Federal Supervision Agency for Information Technologies and Communications.
“We always work on the platform of interaction between different cultures, different ethnic and religious groups on our peninsula. We were pioneers in establishing the inter-ethnic dialogue, stability, and, most importantly, promotion of correct understanding of Islam, which is far from radicalism and extremism,” Muslim Devrishev said.
No information has been published on websites of Russian-controlled security agencies of Crimea.
As a reminder, the representatives of the Mejlis and human rights activists note that the searches in the houses of the Crimean Tatars and mosques have become more frequent after Crimea was annexed by Russia. People are persecuted for religious reasons. However, Russian de facto authorities of Crimea and the Kremlin deny this.
