"We are ready to die for the prophet"

In Grozny, a rally was held against French cartoonists: reporting Daniil Turovsky

In Grozny on Monday, January 19, a large -scale rally “Love for the Prophet Muhammad and protest against caricatures” took place. The head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, in his Instagram, promised to gather a million people to the action - and thereby giving a symbolic answer to millions of Frenchmen who went out into the streets in memory of those who died in recent terrorist attacks. As a result, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 800 thousand people were rally in Grozny (according to the BBC counts-350 thousand). Protesters carried the posters “no caricatures on the prophet”, “No Charlie Hebdo”, “Muhammad - my ideal” and others. The special correspondent of Medusa Daniil Turovsky visited the rally and walked along the streets of Grozny with its residents.

In a round -the -clock eating in Grozny at four in the morning two beards come up to me - Magomet and Umar. “Did you come to the rally? From Moscow? Very cool. Let's go to visit. "

We drive by their car through the city center. Night, however, on every corner - several men armed with machine guns, all in black. The streets leading to the mosque "Heart of Chechnya", next to which the rally will take place, are blocked by military trucks. On several buildings there are huge stretch marks with the inscription "Hands away from our beloved Prophet Muhammad."

“Well, we’re going to our basement,” Mohammed jokes.

“Yes, we will show our cell terrorist,” Umar shines.

“In general, freedom of speech is a very controversial topic,” Magomet argues when I ask what they think about caricatures. “We are faded for freedom of speech, but not for freedom to say everything.” It's complicated. This is how to draw [like in Charlie Hebdo] - definitely impossible. ”

“And, I can say, the action [attack on the editors of Charlie Hebdo] is also a muddy. Too organized. Did he leave his passport? Was it a mask, but went there with a passport? I have a lot of doubts that these are real terrorists. In Paris, everything is as cloudy as with an attack on the Press House (December 4, 2014, militants of the prohibited organization “Imrat Caucasus” attacked the Terrible - approx. Medusa ). For what? Who? "Imrat Caucasus"? Anyone can say that it is they. And then - Caucasians or Muslims are to blame for everything. Remember how in Spider-Man? There, the boss gave the task to Peter Parker so that he would take off the Spider-Man necessarily evil. Muslims want to see evil. "

The apartment of Mohammed and Umar is located in one of the houses on Putin Avenue. They invite me to them and offer to play football on the game console. I ask if they are going to a rally that should begin at ten in the morning. “Necessarily, because it is very interesting,” Mohammed is ironic. - Not really. Maybe look from the window. "

A rally and a march with the not most elegant name “Love for the Prophet Muhammad and protest against caricatures” on his Instagram, the head of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov announced on January 14, a few days after skirmish on social networks with the opposition Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Radio Echo of Moscow. Khodorkovsky, who called for the Russian media to reprint caricatures from Charlie Hebdo, called Kadyrov “an enemy of all Muslims and a personal enemy”, and “Echo of Moscow”, which hung a survey about whether such caricatures were published, “anti -Islamic radio station”.

“I consider it my personal enemies of those who support the“ right ”“ Charlie Ebdo ”and other publications to insult the religious feelings of one and a half million Muslims. We must show our unity and love for the Prophet! " - reasoned Kadyrov on his Instagram. He promised that a million people would take to the streets.

Closer to seven in the morning on Monday, January 19, the first Gazelle appeared on the streets of Grozny with people coming from other regions (I saw about a hundred in total), they got out of cars with the flags of the Caucasian regions - Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia. All with whom I managed to talk, they said that they had come to the action voluntarily. Near the square a minute, the main point of the selection of participants in the procession, sidewalks and lawns are forced by cars - there are thousands of them, not to squeeze through them. On the glasses of cars - on private, and on the "ambulance" and on the police - the same stickers "I Love My Prophet Muhammad" were glued ("I love the Prophet Muhammad").

Rosa, a cleaning lady in one of the cafes near the square, tried to finish the coffee machine with washing as soon as possible - she wanted to take a better place, closer to the stage. “Closer to the respected Ramzan Akhmatovich Kadyrov, I want to get up,” she explained to me. - I am offended by caricatures, like all real Muslims. We will go out to show that Islam unites that this is a religion of unity, that it is peaceful. ” Having finished with a coffee machine, Rosa covered her head with a festive scarf and went out into the street.

Rose immediately caught my eye that every person on the street had a poster or leaflet. There are only a few types of them-this means that they are distributed somewhere centrally. Rose also wanted a poster, she found out that it could be obtained at the Gazelle, standing in the middle of impromptu parking on the lawn. The Gazelle was surrounded by a crowd, the men pushed and cursed, two young people from the body distributed posters with the inscriptions “The image of the Prophet Muhammad is inviolable” and “There are no cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad” (they also distributed balloons in which the word “prophet” was written in English- and incorrectly ). The posters quickly ended, Rose did not get anything. She called her son - he said that he had several posters, and he would drive up soon.

Near the giant parking lot, the organizers gathered students in the Chechen State University. They were built in groups - as they study and go. Students are funny - a day off, you can not learn. On the other side of students - about 300 men danced the Chechen dance of the ZICR. Some of them had wooden sticks in their hands.

To the mosque, people moved from different parts of the city. From all sides, the choir "Allahu Akbar" was heard, drowning out other city sounds.

On the path of the processions were boxes with free rolls, chocolate and water. On the fences, there were A4 papers glued with adhesive tape with clear slogans: “Khodorkovsky supports the caricature of the Prophet Muhammad and requires all media employees to publish a caricature! Disrection for someone else's religion is a lack of democracy! The pressure on the media employees is criminally punishable! We demand to punish the criminal !!! ”,“ There is no editorial office of “echo of Moscow”! No Khodorkovsky’s blasphemy! ”,“ The public figure Khodorkovsky insults Muslim society !!! Then what is his social activity ??? "

By 11 in the morning, there were already so many people near the mosque and neighboring streets that it was impossible to even figure out how many of them were here (BBC journalists believe that about 350 thousand, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs believes that 800 thousand). The host from the stage said that people are still coming, so the “performances” will begin a little later.

For about 20 minutes in a row he read to the Shahada microphone; The crowd repeated after him in Arabic: “I testify that there is no other God except Allah, and I also testify that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”

One of the protesters, 30-year-old Shamil, held the poster "Caricatures cannot insult the Prophet of Muhammad, but they insult all Muslims." “I did not even begin to ask for work from work today, because it is clear that no one will come there anyway,” he says. - I want to say that no one is driven to the action. Everyone goes voluntarily, because for us the Prophet is ourselves. I have a father, who has suffered two strokes, goes here on foot. We went out because it is impossible to endure these insults. I learned about this magazine [Charlie Hebdo] in 2011, when the caricatures were printed for the first time. But now we have come out and support those who showed that it is impossible to insult the prophet. Any Muslim is ready for this. And the one who protects the prophet does not get into hell, but to heaven. "

Finally, the main organizer of the rally appeared on the stage, the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov - dressed in all black and white elegant vest. The columns were enough only on the first rows, but hundreds of thousands of the gathered were not up to Kadyrov - they talked and made a selfie with posters.

“If necessary, we are ready to die in order to stop anyone who thinks that you can irresponsibly bow the name of the Prophet,” Kadyrov said. - This should clearly learn everyone who shamelessly ignore the opinion of hundreds of millions of Muslims. Europe did not draw the proper conclusions from recent bloody events in Paris. Instead of condemning those who opened the shooting, and those who gave their caricatures a reason for this, the French authorities organized a street show with slogans in support of permissiveness leading to bloodshed. This gives the right to say that the authorities and special services of Western countries who are interested in calling a new wave of replenishment of the ranks of ISIS with thousands of deceived young people from around the world can stand behind the incident with caricatures! ”

As soon as Kadyrov finished the performance, people began to disperse around the city, chanting "Allahu Akbar!" These screams were even heard in line for pies - and in all the alleys. When the time for lunch prayer came, most of the protesters laid out prayer rugs right on the asphalt.

Several people prayed next to the fence, on which “we are all kuashi” were bred with black paint. Kuashi is the surname of the terrorist brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo.

Daniil Turovsky