Many Muscovites and residents of St. Petersburg were shocked the other day by the unusual appearance of streets and courtyards in the center of the two capitals. Tens of thousands of followers of Islam, who gathered around the main capital mosques on the day of one of the main Muslim holidays - Eid al-Fitr, frightened some city residents and caused a wave of xenophobic statements in the blogosphere.

The very accumulation of Muslim believers should not be surprising: both capitals are multinational and multi-confessional cities, and numerous residents and migrants with different skin colors and eye shapes have long ceased to be exotic. But thousands of city and regional residents experienced inconveniences due to the closure of the city's most important highways (Mosgortrans only warned about the interruption of tram service), as well as due to crushes in the metro and broadcasts of prayers early in the morning.

The second largest religious community in Russia has every right to celebrate its most important holidays. Open-air worship services, when believers do not fit into a church, are a common practice in many countries. However, the gathering of tens of thousands of Muslims in the center of the capitals once again demonstrated the double standards that the authorities apply to gatherings of various types. The standards should be the same: the law "On gatherings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets" does not divide organizers of mass events by confessional or other criteria. It is the same for parties, public and religious organizations and individual citizens: all of them must submit an application for their events.

But in some cases, city authorities willingly use the right granted by Article 12 of the law to “make a reasoned proposal to change the place and (or) time of a public event” to ban a rally or demonstration in a small area, citing possible transport inconveniences. And in other cases, the hours-long closure of the most important highways in the center of the capital and the accompanying inconveniences for city residents are not taken into account. For example, when believers or representatives of pro-Kremlin youth movements take to the streets.

From the editor: Prayer of a protester