Musa Pliev: appeal against court's decision to ban Koran translation to be considered on December 17

The Krasnodar Regional Court has scheduled the consideration of the appeal against the court's decision on the recognition extremist the book entitled "Semantic translation of holy Koran in Russian" by Elmir Guliev, for December 17. This was announced by Musa Pliev, an advocate from the Advocates' Bar "Musaev and Partners".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 17, the Oktyabrsky District Court of Novorossiysk granted a claim filed by the Novorossiysk Transport Prosecutor's Office and recognized extremist the book "Semantic translation of the holy Koran in Russian" written by Elmir Guliev, a well-known Azerbaijani religious philosopher.

"The decision of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Novorossiysk has caused a lot of talks in relation to its unlawfulness and groundlessness... The very content of the court's decision does not stand any criticism, since it contains a lot of violations of procedural nature," Musa Pliev has noted.

Musa Pliev believes that at present, there is a tendency in the Russian Federation that any undesirable material can be recognized extremist. The advocate has also noted that the decisions to recognize a particular material extremist are mainly pronounced in provincial courts, "to avoid much publicity."

Rushan Abbyasov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, has recalled that the Constitution of the Russian Federation prohibits discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds.

Alexei Malashenko, a member of the Scientific Council of the Moscow Carnegie Centre, believes that the ban of the book "provokes Muslims' discontent" and "sets dangerous precedents."

Let us remind you that on October 2, copies of the book with semantic translations of the Koran, recognized extremist by the Court of Novorossiysk, were seized by policemen in two stores on the market in Cherkessk. Several days later, the Centre for Combating Extremism (CCE) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of the Karachay-Cherkessian Republic (KChR) returned the confiscated copies to the stores.