Participants of "United Caucasus Forum" demand to stop infringement of rights on religious grounds

The Sixth Congress of the "United Caucasus Forum", which took place on September 8 in the city of Yessentuki, adopted a resolution, urging the Russian authorities to pay attention to the religion-based encroachment on believers' rights in the Stavropol Territory. As an example, Kheda Saratova, a member of the Council for the Development of Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights at the head of Chechnya, cited the prosecution of Kurman-Ali Baichorov, the Imam of Kislovodsk and Deputy Mufti of the Stavropol Territory.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on October 29, 2013, the Imam of Kislovodsk Kurman-Ali (Kurman) Baichorov was charged with illegal possession of narcotic drugs.

According to Saratova, rights defenders have witnessed a gross violation of Baichorov's rights by accusing him of "a completely absurd crime."

She added that the situation in the Stavropol Territory will be discussed in more detail at the seventh forum of rights defenders expected to take place in Dagestan this autumn.

Kheda Saratova has listed the lack of mosques in the region, the issue of ban on wearing hijabs raised from time to time in the region, and cases of kidnapping, when later the missing people were found dead among the most pressing local problems.

In his turn, the lawyer Zaurbek Sadakhanov has noted that, despite all the efforts undertaken by the authorities of the Russian Federation to strengthen the interethnic peace there are still people, who are "deliberately kindling enmity among people on ethnic and religious grounds."