Russian Muslims in Dagestan: friends among strangers, strangers among their own

Russians who converted to Islam in Dagestan are being persecuted by security forces and special services, local human rights activists say. The regional muftiate and the Ministry of Internal Affairs say that no one is persecuting those who profess correct Islam.

"I'm not a Wahhabi"

Aminat Abdullaeva, nee Natalya Matveeva, moved from Krasnodar to Dagestan for religious reasons. At home and among her friends, few people understood or accepted her choice, the girl says.

The girl came to the meeting with the PublicPost correspondent with her new girlfriend - a Muslim woman is not allowed to be alone with men, except for close relatives. Aminat is 27 years old, and she left the Kuban capital when she was 25. It turns out that the main reason that she converted to another religion was love.

In a nightclub, she met a Chechen named Adam, Aminat tells her story: “Adam came there with friends. He himself was quiet, did not dance, although I invited him several times. We exchanged numbers, and then began to see each other more and more often. He said that he loved me and that he would marry me, but I had to convert to Islam. To be honest, I fell in love with him deeply and was even willing to sell my soul to the devil. I learned how to pray, dressed much more modestly, and put on a headscarf. To please Adam, I began to read Islamic books. Slowly I began to understand that Islam is a fair and correct religion. I thanked Allah that he brought me to religion. Adam still did not marry me, he said that my parents were against marrying a Russian. I cried and cried, but then I calmed down. My friends began to rejoice for me, they said that I would finally become the normal Natasha again. . My father beat me severely once when he got drunk. In general, they didn’t recognize me as a person when I told them that drinking was bad or made other comments. I also lost my girlfriends.

I decided to leave Krasnodar for Dagestan. Why here? Well, I communicated with Asiyat and other local girls through Odnoklassniki. They called me here and said they would help. They helped me and found me a job. I rent a small apartment here and work in a bakery. I recently went to the imam of the mosque to help me find a husband. He found a couple of candidates, but they already had wives. I don’t want to be a second or third wife, although, according to Islam, not getting married for such a reason is sinful.”

It wasn’t like she was being persecuted, says Aminat: “When I arrived here, three or four months later the police became interested in me. The district police officer came twice and asked me about everything. Once they called me to the department. But they asked all the questions culturally, peacefully. I understand why they did this. Here, Russian girls who converted to Islam, as I heard, are automatically included in the “black lists.” Then they study each girl: where she goes, with. who he communicates with, what he does. I’m not on this list anymore, as the imam told me, because I’m not a Wahhabi and I belong to a normal mosque.”

A normal mosque, according to Aminat, is subordinate to the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the republic.

There was fear and hatred in the eyes

Any Muslim mosque is normal, but another Russian who converted to Islam, Madina Isaeva, disagrees with Aminat. In her passport her name is listed as Marina Kapustina. She moved to Dagestan from Stavropol in early February. She says that she ran away from her parents, whom you “rarely see sober.”

According to her, she came to Islam on her own: “I read a lot about Islam on the Internet, met Muslims from Dagestan and Ingushetia through social networks. I’m 20 years old, and I’m generally an independent girl. My mother and I worked at a food market in Pyatigorsk. Parents I became a heavy drinker, and I traded myself from the age of 14. I secretly saved money from my parents when I was settling in in Makhachkala. And I moved here when I was completely fed up with the looks of people looking after me. I could still see hatred in my eyes. And fear too. All because I was wearing a hijab. The police started approaching me at the market and took me to the police station two or three times. It turns out they wrote complaints against me that I was a terrorist. I moved to Dagestan, found a place in the market, and made friends who were the same as me. But even then the police began to persecute me. They explained to me that the police were interested in me because I wore a black hijab and was even more friendly with them. , whose relatives go to Salafi mosques. Well, these are the mosques that people call Wahhabi. In general, I have the feeling that those who are called Wahhabis and those who are called traditional Muslims would have found a common language long ago if it were not for the security forces. They aggravate misunderstandings between Muslims. Salafis also live according to Russian laws, like other Muslims. But for some reason they are portrayed as terrorists. It’s like we Russians say: divide and conquer.”

The rented apartment where she lives was searched twice, says Madina: “Both times they came late at night. They turned everything over in the apartment. I demand from them a search warrant, to finally introduce themselves, their name, and show identification. Thank God that with I had two girls both times. Otherwise, I’m afraid that they could have planted something on me. I wrote a statement to the district department about illegal searches, they tell me that they don’t know anything about the searches. I’ve already changed my apartment. but I’m afraid they will find me in a new place. But now I keep the numbers of journalists and human rights activists in my phone and will immediately make a fuss if the police come to me again.”

They persecute those who have contacted the wrong people

In the republic, the number of Russians converting to Islam is increasing every year, Magomedrasul Omarov, a representative of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Dagestan, assured PublicPost: “We have not produced statistics as such, but the imams of the mosques themselves say that the number of people coming to convert to Islam has actually increased. If, for example, the year before one person a week came, then last year at least one person came every day. It is believed that girls convert to Islam because their grooms or husbands demand it from them. It’s always like this. It’s just that Russian girls are probably more active, more inquisitive than guys. But the majority of those who accept Islam, as I can judge from the words of the imams, are ours, Dagestan Russians. Same".

If we talk about the persecution of Russian Muslim converts, the police are interested in them, depending on where they converted to Islam, Omarov told PublicPost: “I would not say that it is Russian Muslims that are interesting to the authorities. They are interested in all those who may be associated with the wrong ones people. Yes, in Dagestan the terrorist attacks were committed by Russians who converted to Islam. But major terrorist attacks were committed by our own Dagestanis. And the police are probably interested in Russian Muslims, looking at which imam or which people the person who wanted to convert to Islam turned to.”

Kidnapped and tortured to dissuade him from Islam

Russian Muslims are often persecuted by the police because of statements made by their parents, Elena Denisenko, a lawyer at the Memorial human rights center, told PublicPost: “If we talk about specific examples, we can recall the ordeals of the convert Sergei Yevloev. The guy converted to Islam, but his mother was against it. She asked for it. either a local police officer or a police officer he knew, to talk to his son, to dissuade him from becoming Muslim. Of course, the mother did not expect that her son would be kidnapped and tortured several times. And, as he himself said, the security forces were involved in this. confess to connections with militants. As a result, a criminal case was opened against Evloev on three counts - organizing an illegal armed group, banditry, and illegal possession of weapons. At the trial, the guy told how his operatives took him to the forest and dressed him in camouflage uniforms. , took photographs. These photographs were presented at the trial as evidence of Evloev’s guilt, but in the end the court acquitted the guy.”

According to Denisenko, many conflicts arise with parents who have converted to Islam, because the former do not approve of their children performing namaz and begin to dress according to Islamic norms.

The head of the Human Rights organization, Gulnara Rustamova, told PublicPost that Russian Muslims often turn to her for help: “You know, in fact, I have a lot of statements from Muslims that they are being oppressed because of their religious views. It’s not just Russians who complain. In Dagestan, they recognize the so-called traditional Islam, that is, the one that is promoted by the spiritual administration. They do not accept deviations. And they persecute especially Russians who have converted to Islam. They can come to your home at any time and conduct searches without explanation. They take them to the regional police departments. There they are asked why they came here, who brought them to religion, why they dress like that, why they changed their name. It would seem that they interrogated them once, but no, they interrogate them several times, asking the same questions. same questions. And there are many such persecutions of those who converted to Islam. And the authorities do not react in any way to the statements of human rights activists.”

So that there are no Russian suicide bombers

According to the head of the press service of the Dagestan Ministry of Internal Affairs, Vyacheslav Gasanov, no one is persecuting Muslims in the republic: “It is nonsense that Russian Muslims and Muslims in general are being oppressed. They can come to the attention of the police only if there is suspicion of their involvement in those or other offenses. However, like any citizens, the Ministry of Internal Affairs does not deal with Russians separately. Is it written on their foreheads that they are Russians? When they move to Dagestan, they are not registered, after all. to talk about the fact that immediately after arriving at their door, the police are knocking. And this talk about supposedly existing “black lists” of Russian Muslims is also nonsense. I will again emphasize that people come to the attention of the police only if they exist. suspicions of their involvement in something. Of course, when Russian Muslims arouse suspicion, the protocols indicate that they moved to Dagestan, that they changed their faith."

A source in the Dagestan Department for Combating Extremism told PublicPost that Russian Muslims have to be kept an eye on, willy-nilly: “In the last two or three years, there have been more Russians converting to Islam. By Russians we also mean Ukrainians and Belarusians, who also come to republic and live here. It happens that they often get involved in radical movements. They meet people who can drag them into different stories. There is also a fear that Russian girls may be processed to carry out terrorist attacks as suicide bombers. attention to Russian Muslims seems excessive, but this is a necessary measure.”