Russian security forces raided Islamic cultural center in Simferopol

In Simferopol, on January 28, armed Russian security officers surrounded the mosque of the Islamic Cultural Center, on Mokrousov street 7, and searched it. Even Muslims who came to pray were not let in the mosque.

It was reported by Mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine "Ummah" on his Facebook page.

“This is the third search in that mosque, held by Russian security forces. Last time they planted several books that are considered forbidden in Russia, and therefore instituted the administrative proceedings. So imams had to check every corner, every shelf daily to see that no one planted anything,” he writes.

According to Mufti, during a search of the security forces “accidentally found” two books - the Muslim prayer book “Fortress of a Muslim” and “The Book of Monotheism.”

"Imam swears (and I believe him) that in the evening, when closing the mosque he saw there were no these books on the site. There was a single book – the Muslim prayer book "Fortress of a Muslim" which contains the prayers of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him!). It is not clear why believe in a book of medieval classical prayers is listed among prohibited literature. It is insane. But we are no strangers to this, they forbade Quran there,” Said Ismagilov said.

“But the second planted book was “The Book of Monotheism” by Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab, the man who is known as the founder of Wahhabism and is very popular in certain circles. Not only is this book published in the past in Russia in Russian language (and was never published in Ukraine), imams assure it has never been present in mosques and libraries of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Simferopol. This book was planted into the mosque, clearly they want to bring charges to the community that means trouble in Russian context,” he explains.

Having searched the infrastructure, the armed visitors put forward claims of allegedly improperly laid communications. All this activities, as Mufti said, coincided in time with the press conference, held in Kyiv by Archbishop Klyment (Kusch) of Simferopol and Crimea UOC-KP. This hierarch, in particular, said that Russian "Arbitration Court" in the occupied Crimea ruled that the premises of the Cathedral in the center of Simferopol were seized from the Crimean Diocese of the UOC-KP, because there were also some complaints against communications.

"Probably new manuals were sent to Crimea describing what to do with personas non grata,” Said Ismagilov made a guess.

“Despite these glaring facts of harassment on religious grounds on the peninsula, including those collected by human rights organizations, the Russian authorities of Crimea deny this and assert that believers of all faiths are in equal conditions,” said the mufti of the Religious Administration of Muslims of Ukraine “Ummah”.