The Moscow City Court approved the sentence for the followers of Said Nursi

Six defendants in the case were found guilty of involvement in the banned Nurcular association. The verdict came into force.

As it became known on December 8, 2023, on November 8, the Moscow City Court approved the sentence passed in the summer against six followers of Said Nursi. The defendants will have to serve different terms of imprisonment in a colony.

The verdict in the case of involvement in the Nurcular association, recognized as an extremist organization, was handed down on June 27, 2023 by the Kuzminsky District Court of Moscow. The accused Evgeny Tarasov under Part 1 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organizing the activities of an extremist organization) was sentenced to six and a half years in a general regime colony with a four-year ban on leading and participating in religious organizations. The court sentenced Mukazhan Ksyupov, Parviz Zeynalov and Urdash Abdullaev to six years of imprisonment under the same article with a similar four-year ban, as well as a year of restriction of freedom. Ilmir Abdullin and Nikolai Nesterovich were sentenced under Part 2 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code (participation in the activities of an extremist organization) to two years and seven months in prison with restriction of freedom for ten months.

The criminal prosecution became known in the fall of 2021 - on October 5, all the defendants in the case were detained and taken into custody. During the searches, religious literature (including 286 copies of publications recognized as extremist), computer equipment, phones and data storage devices were confiscated from them. Some of the detainees were found with weapons and ammunition: a Vepr carbine, a Saiga rifle, an Izh gas pistol, two crossbows and a bow with arrows. In addition, during the searches, two copies of the report by Vitaly Ponomarev (the now liquidated Memorial Human Rights Center) “Russian special services against Risale-i Nur” were found. It was also noted that P. Mamedov (who was not among the defendants in this case) resisted arrest during arrest and tried to escape in a car. On September 1, 2022, the Kuzminsky District Court of Moscow began considering the criminal case.

According to the investigation, which the court agreed with, in December 2017, a native of Krasnoyarsk, Tarasov, who lived in Moscow, decided to create a “Nurcular” cell and set up a “home madrasah” in his apartment on Volzhsky Boulevard. Ksyupov, Zeynalov and Abdullaev, the investigation argued, also organized similar madrassas in their apartments. Abdullin and Nesterovich took part in their activities; the latter, in particular, was involved in editing and designing covers and texts for Nursi's books. Participants in the “dars” (lessons) read and discussed Nursi’s works. The purpose of the madrasah was supposedly the “gradual transformation of the personality” of the students and a change in their worldview in accordance with the ideology of the teachings of the Turkish theologian Said Nursi. According to prosecution witnesses, this had a “negative impact on their worldview and consciousness, increasing the level of aggression towards other social, political and religious groups.”

We consider the ban on Nurcular to be unlawful. Its recognition as an extremist organization in 2008 was a consequence of unfounded bans on the books of the Turkish theologian Said Nursi for promoting the superiority of Islam over other religions. Let us recall that in 2018 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that by banning these books, Russian courts violated Art. 10 of the European Convention guaranteeing freedom of expression. We believe that Russian Muslims studying Nursi's heritage do not form a single organization. Nevertheless, the Nurcular association is banned in Russia as an extremist organization, as a result of which Muslims who read and discuss Nursi’s books are subject to criminal prosecution.

Sources

• In Moscow, real deadlines were approved in the case of participation in the Nurcular movement // OVD-Info. 2023. December 8.
• In Moscow, a verdict was passed against four organizers and two participants of an extremist organization // Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for Moscow. 2023. June 28.
• Criminal case card No. 01-0020/2023 // Courts of general jurisdiction of Moscow. 2022. December 22.
• Yuri Senatorov. Read before extremism // Kommersant. 2023. January 10.