Muslims Ask Moscow Authorities for Separate Beaches for Men and Women

RT: The suggestion of the Muslim community to organize separate beaches for men and women has been supported by representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, Jewish and Buddhist religions.

The request to the Moscow City Hall has been prepared and filed by Albir Krganov who is a deputy chairman of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia and also a member of the Public Chamber’s Commission for Harmonization of Relations between Ethnic and Religious Groups.

The activist claimed that “hundreds of thousands” of religious residents of Moscow were deprived of ability to visit city beaches that are currently shared by men and women. “As not everyone can afford a trip abroad, and we consider it necessary to open additional recreation zones for the residents of the capital city who cannot stay on common beaches for religious or moral reasons,” Krganov wrote in his letter. » | Friday, June 05, 2015

Putin Says Foreign Foes Use Radical Islam to Weaken Russia

REUTERS: President Vladimir Putin accused foreign rivals on Tuesday of using radical Islam to weaken Russia and appealed to Muslim clerics to help reduce tensions after a deadly suicide bombing and nationalist riots.

The comments, his first on this month's riots in Moscow, were delivered in the mainly Muslim region of Bashkortostan and underlined Kremlin concerns that ethnic or religious tensions could threaten the unity of the Russian state.

Monday's suicide bombing, blamed on a Muslim woman from the North Caucasus, killed six people on a bus in Volgograd and raised fears about attacks as Russia prepares for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

"Some political forces use Islam, the radical currents within it ... to weaken our state and create conflicts on Russian soil that can be managed from abroad," Putin told Muslim clerics meeting in Ufa, Bashkortostan's capital, in southern Russia.

"Tensions between the West and the Islamic world are rising today, and someone is trying to gamble on that by pouring fuel on the fire," he added. » | Alexei Anishchuk | Reuters | Ufa, Russia | Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Russia Detains Over 300 Muslims During Prayer
YA LIBNAN: MOSCOW – In a new crackdown on Russian Muslims, Moscow police have detained more than 300 worshippers after rounding them up during prayer at a Muslim prayer room in the Russian capital.

“The situation in the North Caucasus should be kept under particular control,” President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of security force officers, Reuters reported on Friday, June 7.

“The policy in the fight against corruption, crime and the insurgency has to be carried out harshly and consistently.”

In a raid carried on Friday, the forces detained 300 Muslims, including 170 foreigners, without disclosing reasons behind their arrest.

The forces, led by Federal Security Service (FSB), also confiscated Islamic literature to check its content.

Friday’s raid is the third targeting Muslim places of worship in Moscow or St Petersburg this year. » | Sunday, June 09, 2013

Russian Police Detain Members of Banned Islamic Group
REUTERS.COM: (Reuters) - Russian police have arrested six members of a banned Islamic group on suspicion of recruiting followers in Moscow mosques and possessing weapons, the Interior Ministry said on Monday.

Russian authorities are concerned about the prospect of Islamist militants becoming more of a threat outside the heavily Muslim North Caucasus, which is plagued by an insurgency rooted in two post-Soviet separatist wars in Chechnya province.

The Interior Ministry said the detainees were members of the Islamic Revival Party, which was designated as an international terrorist group by Russia's Supreme Court and banned.

Police searching places where the detainees were staying found nine hand grenades and other weapons and ammunition, as well as extremist literature. » | Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Jon Boyle | MOSCOW | Monday, November 12, 2012

Islam Comes to the Classroom in Russia's Chechnya

REUTERS.COM: At school No. 20 in Russia's troubled region of Chechnya, boys sit on one side of the classroom and girls in headscarves on the other. All are silent as the new teacher rises to speak.

"Do you say your morning prayers?" Islam Dzhabrailov, 21, asks, wearing a green prayer cap and a plain tunic, religious dress that is increasingly popular in the mountainous province in southern Russia's mostly Muslim Caucasus region.

"It's just as important as doing your homework," he tells the students aged 14-15.

One of 420 teachers employed from madrasas to teach history of religion, Dzhabrailov is driving efforts by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to combat Islamist insurgency by implementing his own brand of Islam. In this Kadyrov has the backing of President Vladimir Putin, though some may harbor doubts about the man.

Against a background of stricter guidance on women's dress and wider acceptance of polygamy, critics say Kadyrov is defying Russian separation of religion and state and pushing Chechnya further from Moscow only a decade after federal troops ousted a separatist leadership there to reinstate Kremlin rule. » | Writing by Thomas Grove; editing by Ralph Boulton | GROZNY, Russia | Monday, October 22, 2012