It seems that today there was an information dissociation from the farce organized by the security forces against the Moscow-based Dagestani blogger Alibek Mirzekhanov. After several days of limitless actions without clear justification, they finally settled on their version of events — «terrorism».
It is worth noting that after capturing Mirzekhanov after months (or, more likely, years) of surveillance, they forced him (under torture, according to his words) to confess either to involvement with ISIS or, at worst, to involvement in the infamous fight at the «Neolit» cafe.
In recent days, Kremlin propaganda has been actively trying to portray this as a diversion by foreign intelligence agencies to «rock the boat» of Russian stability. As a result, a domestic conflict involving Chechens and Azerbaijanis is being portrayed as the beginning of a Salafi-Shiite war, with Mirzekhanov’s alleged involvement being used to lend credibility to this claim.
However, after forcing the blogger to incriminate himself in order to remove the threat of being accused of involvement with ISIS, the security forces ended up accusing him of just that. Specifically, they accused him of recruiting fighters for Syria, which under the current circumstances is classified as terrorism and punishable by lengthy prison sentences.
Without any critical analysis, various media outlets picked up on this fabrication, unnoticed in other cases where trust in the authorities and security services is higher. The reason is obvious: the accused is a Dagestani, a Muslim, and has a beard.
As Oleg Kashin, a typical representative of these circles, explained, there is already a «public consensus» among Russians regarding the acceptability of such actions against this particular group of people. However, this story clearly demonstrates the naivety of Kashin’s approach, according to which one can approve of such actions in the Caucasus but demand that the authorities not transfer them to other parts of the country.
After all, this is happening not in Dagestan, where the blogger fled to escape the lawlessness of local security forces, but in Moscow itself, where it turns out that the same methods are being used. And as reports from sources such as OVD-Info show, this is becoming a daily reality for people across Russia, not just for Muslim bloggers and activists, but for everyone else.
This will continue until Russian civil society realizes that the only line of conduct towards all victims of political repression should be the old but still vital slogan: «For our freedom and yours!»
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