The incident that happened yesterday with Khabib Nurmagomedov at one of the Moscow airports before his departure to Turkey is deeply revealing. This story is, so to speak, from the «it would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad» series.
This time, the famous athlete was targeted not by Conor McGregor, but by employees of the Border Service of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). They mistook Nurmagomedov and the group of Caucasian athletes traveling with him to Turkey for potential militants who wanted to join the outlawed ISIL in Russia. The guys were detained at the checkpoint until the FSB officers who recognized him came to his aid. Realizing their mistake, they apologized to him and even took a picture with him. The incident was resolved. This time.
Thanks to the fact that among the detained group was a world-famous fighter, even Vladimir Putin had to meet him. But what if this company did not include Khabib, who cannot be cloned and attached to any group of Muslims flying to Turkey from Russian airports? It is clear that in the best case these guys would have been detained indefinitely, subjected to biased interrogation and released without any apologies or photos as a souvenir.
That is, of course, if they were released at all. Thousands of Russian Muslims, not only young men of athletic appearance, but also covered women, including pregnant ones, have gone through this. Of course, one can say that thousands of Russian Muslims have indeed joined ISIL or other groups in Syria. However, first of all, it is well known that for several years it has been practically impossible to enter these regions through Turkey, which has tightened control over its borders with Syria and Iraq. Second, did not the brave Russian Aerospace Forces defeat ISIL and successfully destroy it «at a distance» as stated? If so, why keep «potential terrorists» in the country if it is more convenient to deal with them at a distance? Third, what about the presumption of innocence and the constitutional rights of citizens to freedom of movement?
Security officials say that these rights are limited only in relation to people on the so-called «preventive lists,» although this procedure, which bypasses a court decision and is based solely on suspicion by the security forces, is deeply unconstitutional. In this case, however, we see that this is not the case. After all, Khabib Nurmagomedov is clearly not on any such lists, but this did not prevent the FSB border guards from detaining him at the border. This means that any Muslim’s rights can be arbitrarily curtailed without any lists, let alone court rulings.
In other words, this story tells us that only one category of Muslims in Russia, the «privileged», have any rights (to be released after unlawful detention). But this is also true for other citizens of the country.