Abdulmumin Gadzhiev, who was detained by law enforcement officials in Dagestan, may be charged with supporting terrorism, possibly including its financing through the transfer of funds to the funds of the well-known Islamic philanthropist Abu Umar Sasitlinsky. Sources close to Gadzhiev deny his involvement in financing this activity, but they point out the absurdity of the charges themselves, noting that even people like Ramzan Kadyrov have transferred money to build wells as part of Abu Umar Sasitlinsky’s charitable projects. Will Ramzan Kadyrov be imprisoned for financing the construction of wells in Niger? Doubtful, which makes it clear that such accusations against Gadzhiev are just a pretext.
The essence of the question is that he is one of the few remaining authoritative Islamic journalists in Russia. Although he is a journalist, Abdulmumin Gadzhiev’s authority for thousands of Muslims goes far beyond the scope of his profession. He is an Islamic enlightener in the broadest sense of the word, who discusses many issues related to the Islamic religion competently and wisely, backed by the necessary knowledge.
Muslims know that the security forces of Putin and Gundyaev’s Russia systematically fight against the Islamic civil society of the country, especially against its elite, the most knowledgeable, experienced and authoritative individuals. However, in this case, in addition to the fact that an Islamic enlightener became a victim of repression, he is also a journalist, one of the most famous in Dagestan.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning that only three days ago we commented on the highly publicized case of the arrested and quickly released Moscow journalist Ivan Golunov: «Golos Islama» wholeheartedly congratulates the journalist Ivan Golunov, his friends and family, as well as the entire Russian civil society on this victory. We are pleased that the case against Golunov has been dropped, especially considering that a few months ago a criminal case was opened against our editor-in-chief, Hamza Dmitry Chernomorchchenko, for his activities on our website. We will provide detailed information about this case later, God willing, but we can say that the initiation of this case was the result of the collective work of several regional offices of the FSB, which tried to use several of our publications as a basis for their accusations, until they absurdly accused him of justifying terrorism, specifically the banned ISIS group in the Russian Federation, based on an article about the reasons for the fall of Aleppo. We also know of Muslim journalists and human rights defenders who are currently under threat of fabricated criminal cases against them.
As we can see, these cases did not take long to emerge — less than a week has passed. This confirms the correctness of those who have spoken and continue to speak: as long as this regime remains unchanged, as long as the structures of political terror are not dismantled and its active functionaries are not held accountable, as long as not only individual representatives of power change, but also its ideology and the nature of its relationship with society, any talk of a «thaw» in the country will only confuse people.
Today we, the journalists of «Golos Islama», call on all our colleagues, Russian journalists, regardless of their political and religious views, to defend Abdulmumin Gadzhiev in the same way as we recently supported Ivan Golunov. However, we also urge everyone to realize that as long as this regime exists, no independent journalist and person with an active civic position will be safe.