The thinking part of Russian society rightly reacted with indignation to the plans of the security forces to imprison Moscow student Egor Zhukov for 4 years for expressing his opinion, as well as to the fact that the 3-year suspended sentence was presented to him by the authorities as a mercy.
Unfortunately, few of those outraged noticed another sentence handed down yesterday. Crimean resident Enver Seytosmanov was sentenced to 16 years in prison for essentially the same thing they wanted to imprison Zhukov for, but did not — expressing his views. Specifically, he was recognized as the organizer of a cell of the declared terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose activities usually include writing, discussing, and distributing their own books and articles, practices that are permitted in most democratic countries in the West.
Of course, once again, reflections on double standards and hypocrisy emerge, including from the very society that has «selected» victims of repression like Zhukov or Golunov, and «untouchable» individuals like Seytosmanov or Abdulmumin Gadzhiev. Although, frankly speaking, the former receive little attention, while the latter face real adversity, we will not entrench the feeling of victimhood and hopelessness among Muslims.
In this world, only the strong are taken into account; it’s time for us to understand this, as well as the fact that true power is different from how many of our brothers and sisters perceive it. Then they justified Golunov, and now they released Zhukov on parole, precisely because there was real power behind them. And it is not just the thousands of people who took to the streets in their support — we Muslims could not gather fewer. It is a mobilizable network of human rights organizations, media, bloggers, fundraisers, etc.
The Muslim community in Russia has only a small fraction of what the so-called «liberals» have. Yes, in large part because the foundations of an Islamic civil society organization were crushed earlier and harder than theirs. We have talked about this more than once. But we must also understand that we cannot always justify ourselves with this. Few people care about the suffering of others, and in this world your problems are your problems, and they will be heard and discussed only if you have a voice loud enough to be heard.
Does Islamic civil society in Russia have its own voice? The existing one, «Golos Islama,» which operates from abroad and is periodically blocked in Russia, and a few other regional websites that are on the verge of being shut down or banned, do not yet have the means to be the loud voice of Muslims that will be heard. But how loud it will be depends largely on the demand for it from Muslims themselves, including those who have the means to contribute to it.