As it became known today, one of the Russian «courts» has recognized the terrorist organization Jamaat «Krasny Pahar», which operated in the Samara region several years ago. It may seem unclear why this had to be done now, considering that the Jamaat was crushed by security forces in 2016 (see photo above), and the prayer house it had equipped was even blown up. But the answer is obvious — as the repressive machinery gains momentum, the more bans, condemnations and terrorist/extremist designations there are, the better it is for those who do it. More statistics, more stars and awards, faster career advancement.
And by the way, it should be noted separately that the official recognition of a terrorist organization that was crushed five years ago suggests that similar cases await us in the future, when law enforcement agencies, for lack of current cases, will pull dusty closed case files out of the closets to squeeze something out of them.
As for the banned Jamaat itself, it is known from open sources that the main fault of these people was that they decided to independently equip a prayer house in a cottage they had bought, instead of going under the DUM. And in Putin’s Russia, in case anyone has forgotten, freedom of religion, the right to freely spread one’s religious views (even without calls to violence, etc.) and simply to gather for prayers in one’s own (!) home have long been a thing of the past. And if many Protestants or Jehovah’s Witnesses (who are also banned in Russia) realized this only after the Yarovaya Laws were passed, Muslims realized it much earlier.
In this connection it is necessary to read that the boys should blame themselves, because they should not have engaged in self-activity, but should have worked under the DUM. But let’s point out a few things. First of all, the case happened more than five years ago. Well, yes, on the one hand, even then everything was clear — our team had left Russia several years before. But understanding comes to everyone at different speeds. And secondly, where is the guarantee that the communities of the official DUM cannot face the same thing? Is there a lack of examples to the contrary?
In the Brezhnev era, the USSR, with a population of almost 300 million, had less than 200 recognized political prisoners, including religious dissidents. In today’s Putin’s Russia, with its population of only about 145 million, there are already over 400 such recognized individuals, and the actual number is much higher. Need a comment?
Just last week, dozens of influential Russian journalists were recognized as «foreign agents» whose guilt lies in writing about the lawlessness in Putin’s Russia. At the same time, yesterday the FSB published an order according to which anyone who writes in foreign media or media with foreign funding (including funding from Russians living abroad) about any problems in Russian law enforcement agencies, even if it is not classified information, can be recognized as a «foreign agent».
But if anyone thinks that only «enemies of the state» such as opposition figures, whether political or religious, are under attack, they are sorely mistaken. Also last week, the founder and CEO of Group-IB, Ilya Sachkov, was arrested. Interestingly, this company actively helped the authorities monitor Russian bloggers and bring cases against them for seditious publications and reposts, and its leader had several meetings with Putin. And now he is accused of spying for the West and faces up to 20 years in prison. A similar case is that of the former deputy minister of education and vice-president of Sberbank, Marina Rakova, who implemented «digital education platforms» in the country. She is accused of almost the same thing, but she managed to leave Russia before her arrest.
In general, when law enforcement agencies run out of targets like opposition figures and dissidents, they go after people within the system, just like during Stalin’s repressions in the 1930s. And do you really think that if personal proximity to Putin or high positions in the government and state structures do not provide protection, cooperation with the DUMs will?
Being in Putin’s Russia, openly provoking the bull by creating such jamaats has long been suicidal, and even more so today. Sometimes we are accused of calling on our co-religionists in captive Russia to take such suicidal actions abroad. But this is absolutely not true.
Engaging in such actions now, especially for Muslims, is like sticking your fingers in a wall socket. This doesn’t mean that it will be like this forever, but to change the situation, it is not enough for a few Muslims, especially small groups, to wish it in the midst of the passive inaction and indifference of the majority. To change the situation, the cup of patience of the critical mass of the entire Russian society must be filled, and only then, when the time is visibly coming and there is no doubt about it, will Muslims also have to get involved, with a clear understanding of what they want and what it takes to achieve it.
And for now, you can and should prepare people as much as possible, open their eyes to what is happening in the country, so that they see that «this cannot go on». This is what this regime is afraid of, which is now trying to label, suffocate, and strangle anyone who contributes to it as «foreign agents,» etc., and thus shut them down, if not legally, then financially. So another thing you can do right now is to support those rare media outlets like ours that are doing this work, taking advantage of the fact that there are still safe ways to do it.