In early October, Russian law enforcement officials arrested 10 Russian citizens who had gathered in a private apartment in Moscow to read the works of Said Nursi, a Turkish Islamic theologian of Kurdish origin. In Russia, such reading is considered automatic proof of affiliation with the recognized extremist organization «Nurjular». And while before the Yarovaya amendments this offense could be punished with a few years in prison, sometimes with probation, now it can result in much longer sentences.
However, it was not the news itself that caught our attention, as it can easily get lost among other news about the repressive machinery. By the way, today Alexei Navalny joked that he had «joined the numerous ranks of Muslims», because he was given the status of an extremist by the administration of his colony, and 70% of «extremists» in Russian colonies are Muslims.
What caught our attention was not the news of another imminent influx of «extremist Muslims» into Russian colonies. What was remarkable was the coverage of this news by Russian security forces, in particular the Telegram channel «Siloviki» with over 100,000 subscribers. While reporting on the crackdown on the activities of members of the «Turkish Islamic organization ‘Nurjular'», they paid attention not only to the fact that it is banned in Russia and recognized as extremist, but also that it is «supported by R. Erdogan». That is to say, we see that in Russia the favorable attitude of the Turkish president to reading the works of a Turkish Islamic theologian, whom his Russian counterpart publicly calls «friend Redzhep», is not an alibi, but an aggravating circumstance.
However, we are not surprised — it has long been known that behind the facade of friendship between Erdogan and Putin there is fierce competition in many areas. In the relations of ordinary people, such behavior would be called hypocrisy, but the entire modern politics is based on this kind of hypocrisy, so there is no reason to be surprised.
What is surprising here is something else. In recent years, Turkish leaders and the foreign policy establishment have regularly raised the issue of Islamophobia in the world, its dangers and the need to fight it. For this, they deserve great thanks — unironically. In order to document the manifestations of such Islamophobia, responsible Turkish officials collect such facts and then compile and publish a report containing them.
This raises a question. These reports contain numerous cases of ordinary information attacks or domestic assaults against Muslims in the EU, which fortunately do not result in anything extraordinary for their victims. However, the systematic Islamophobia, as well as Turkishophobia, in Putin’s Russia is completely ignored, despite the fact that there are many official and sometimes quite high-ranking individuals who exhibit such behavior. What’s more, while in the EU the consequences of Islamophobia can lead to Turkish Islamic organizations being placed on an undesirable list, which doesn’t prevent them from operating and overcoming some difficulties, in Russia members of these organizations are sent to colonies for long sentences under the cheers of state propagandists, claiming that the victims of their repression are «supported by Erdogan».