Crackdown in Adygeia

A group of six Muslims were detained as they were coming out the main mosque in Maikop, Adygeia, after the night salah (one of the five daily prayers mandatory for Muslims — ed.) as part of an activity for uncovering "extremist underworld" after the Nalchik events in Kabardino-Balkaria.

Among the suspected "underworld dwellers" were officials from the Spiritual Board of the Muslims of Adygeia and the Krasnodar Territory, in particular, Mr Ruslan Khakirov, imam at the mosque, and his deputy Mr Asker Bogus.

The detained Muslims were delivered to the Republican Department for the Combating of Organised Crime and kept there throughout the entire night. There they were tortured in order to make them confess to being connected with extremists, Ingushetia.ru says.

They were beaten and subjected to degrading interrogations, stripped bare. The main charge against them was that they observed Islamic hygiene norms and had beards.

In the morning, the police officers arranged "protocols of administrative detention" for all those detained in which they indicated that the Muslims had been engaged in hooliganism.

The Muslims (together with two young Chechen students detained on the same evening) were delivered to the Maikop court where Justice Ruslan Matyzhev established that there had been no administrative offence in their actions.

Remarkably, the Adygei police officers who detained and tortured the Muslims frankly admitted that they were carrying out that action having direct orders from their superiors "in connection with the Nalchik events," according to NEWSru.com.

• Police violence raging in Kabardino-Balkaria