In Mari El, two imams complained to the prosecutor's office about the TV channel

In Mari El, imams Rafael Safin and Farit Shageev, who were previously dismissed from their posts, filed a complaint with the prosecutor's office against the Mari El State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. In February 2019, this TV channel aired a story about these imams, which they consider slanderous, incites hatred and offends religious feelings.

In early March 2020, it became known that the imams of two mosques in the Zvenigovsky district of Mari El, Rafael Safin and Farit Shageev, filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office against the Mari El State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company. In February 2020, this TV channel aired a story in which both imams were accused of adherence to the Suleymanji Jamaat.

“This sect belongs to unorthodox Islam, distorted and forbidden. Adherents of the sect impose a distorted ideology to use youth in terrorist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb ut-Tahrir. The goals and objectives of the sect are to build a caliphate in a secular state ,” said the mufti of the Mari El Cathedral Mosque and the head of the regional spiritual administration of Muslims in the republic, Fanus Salimgareev, in an interview with the TV channel.

The regional DUM deprived both imams of their posts - as Ibragim Shaikhiev, the imam-hatib of the Medvedev mosque, said in the same story, "for gross violation of the requirements of discipline, namely, propaganda to violate unity and peace, as well as for repeatedly disrupting meetings of imams" .

Safin and Shageev believe that this video contains signs of inciting hostility and offends their religious feelings. The imams also intend to go to court with a libel suit.

According to the lawyer Ruslan Nagiyev, who represents the interests of the imams, both of them are not related to the Suleymanji religious group, which, unlike the Muslim Brotherhood and Hizb ut-Tahrir, is not banned in Russia.

Shageev believes that the reason for his removal from office with Safin and the appearance of this video is their unwillingness to recognize the new charter of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims, which provides for the appointment of imams of the Muslim Spiritual Muslim Board, and not by the general meeting of parishioners, and their intention to leave the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate.

In 2019, both imams were prosecuted under Part 3 of Art. 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation for the absence of the name of the organization on the building of the mosque and the necessary marking on the distributed literature.

Sources

• Khisamov R. Imams of two mosques were removed from their posts under the "Yarovaya law" and accused of adherence to "Suleimanjilar" // Idel. Realities. March 3, 2020