Estimates of number of participants of rally in Grozny against caricatures on Prophet Muhammad differ essentially

Eyewitnesses and participants of the rally against caricatures on Prophet Muhammad in Grozny have reported contradictory data on the number of people, who came to the action. Internet users have also doubted the statement of the Chechen authorities that the action was attended by more than a million.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that today Grozny hosted a mass action "We love Muhammad", initiated by Chechen clergy. According to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), the rally was over 800,000 strong, while the local MIA claimed over a million, with the total population of the republic, as of January 1, 2014, according to the Russian State Statistics Committee, making 1,346,000 people.

Rasul Magomadov, a Grozny resident, has shared his impressions about the action in his page on the "VKontakte" social network, stating that the rally was attended by about 500,000 people and had a peaceful character.

The Russian Service of the BBC reports from the venue, in its turn, that the rally in central Grozny was attended by up to 350,000 people.

The figures presented by the authorities caused doubt in those users of social networks, who did not participate in the action.

"It's not so easy to transport one million people along mountain roads from most distant villages. And it's problematic, perhaps, to place one million people in the city, inhabited by just 280,000," Alexander Raiskiy, who lives near Moscow, has noted.

Even if the information about 800,000 participants is exaggerated, we still are talking about hundreds of thousands of people; however, the presence at the action was clearly "voluntary-mandatory", said Anton Orekh, a journalist of the "Echo Moskvy" in his author's programme.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.