Ruslan Kurbanov: illegal immigration should be counteracted at borders, not in Moscow mosques

According to experts, the special operation of detaining in a Moscow house of worship of natives of Northern Caucasus republics and Azerbaijan was conducted by the police with obvious violations, which can lead to radicalization of Muslims.

Let us remind you that on June 7, mass detention of believers was held in the house of worship, located in the Pechatniki District of Moscow: in total about three hundred people were detained. More than half of them, as reported by the press service of the Moscow Police, are foreign nationals, mostly from Azerbaijan. Many detainees are immigrants from Northern Caucasus, especially from Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Ruslan Kurbanov, a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Director of the Fund to Support Humanitarian Initiatives "Altair", associates the recent increased attention of law enforcement bodies to Muslim communities in Moscow with the authorities' desire to quickly fix those areas, which had been neglected for decades.

"In this case I mean the sphere of state registration of new Muslim communities and the construction of new mosques. If we talk about the fight against illegal migration, the work should be done not in Moscow mosques, but at the borders, through which these illegal migrants get to Russia," said Kurbanov.

He sees the reason for the increased interest in Muslim religious organizations in the overall growth of Islamophobia and the general negation of the growing Muslim activities in the country.