Publishers to appeal against ruling of Orenburg court on Muslim books

The ruling of the Orenburg Regional Court in the case of Muslim books will be appealed against by means of cassation, said the advocate Timur Zaripov, who represented the interests of the Publishing Houses "Dilya" and "New World" and of Imam Alyautdinov from the Moscow Shamil Memorial Mosque. According to lawyers, exclusion of a number of books from a list of extremist materials should entail revision of other cases related to such literature.

Timur Zaripov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that a new ruling was passed on the case, recognizing 18 books out of 68 as extremist. He intends to submit a repeated complaint against Judge Alexander Nuzhdin from the Leninsky District Court, who had considered the case in the first instance.

According to the advocate, some systematic approach is needed to the examination of religious literature – "some preliminary experts' analysis prior to publication with the participation of competent persons, including theologians, which should make, in case of their positive conclusion, impossible any further recognition of literature as extremist."

The second problem, in the opinion of the lawyer is the poor qualification of the experts, who are attracted to assess this sort of literature.

The court ruling has come into force, but it does not mean that all the "rehabilitated" books will be automatically excluded from the list of extremist materials, the lawyer Ravil Tugushev has added.

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