Almost a year ago, we wrote about the clear double standards of the forces controlling the Urals region toward the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and Islam (source). Unfortunately, the situation has only worsened since then. For example, the Nur Usman mosque in Ekaterinburg, which we also reported on (source), was finally demolished. Readers can find the details of this case through the link above, but to summarize, the land given to Muslims for the mosque in the «cursed nineties» was taken away in the «stable tens» when «wild democracy» was replaced by Putin’s «order and traditional values». Formally, the Muslims were given a new plot of land on the outskirts of the city near the railroad tracks as compensation for the confiscated land in the city center. But there are good reasons to believe that they will not be allowed to build a mosque there either. And here’s why.
Let’s consider the Abu Hanifa mosque on Repin Street 42a, which is located in a building that the Muslim community managed to legally own through various court battles. However, after losing these lawsuits, the authorities decided to take a different approach — imposing huge fines for the fact that it is located on land that «belongs to the category of populated areas and has an approved use as a cinema building». It is worth noting that this former movie theater was handed over to the mosque by the authorities themselves, just like the land previously taken from the Nur Usman community. Therefore, the community is now forced to collect 500,000 rubles to pay the fine. However, it is clear that as long as the grounds for this penalty remain, the authorities will continue to impose fines until they evict the community from this site, which is a valuable piece of land in the context of the ongoing development there.
A similar principle was applied to the Rahmat Mosque between 2014 and 2016. Its leadership was neutralized through criminal proceedings (source), and eventually the building was handed over to the Tadzhuddinovskiy Regional Spiritual Directorate of Muslims (RDSUM), which obediently allowed its demolition under the pretext of tram construction (source). Now the same Tadzhuddinovsky RDSUM is demanding the construction of another functioning mosque — the historically first Maulid mosque on Voronezhsky Avenue. Taking into account the fate of the previous mosque under the management of this organization, there are serious concerns that the same story will repeat itself in this case.
In fact, it is possible that Ekaterinburg will deprive its Muslim community of all mosques one after another. And all this, we remind you, is happening in a city where the ROC is building one church after another and, in case of dissatisfaction of the residents, mobilizes not only its lobby in power, but also hired gangs (source).