Religious research specialist urges to toughen punishment for extremism in Russia
Orenburg, July 3, Interfax – The lack of applicable legislation attracts a great number of extremists to Russia, religious research specialist, deputy head of the Expert Council for State Religious Expertise at the Russian Justice Ministry Roman Silantyev believes.
“If Russia had good antiextremist legislation, we would have less religious extremists, they would leave our country,” Silantyev said at the international conference in Orenburg.
According to him, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan imprison extremists for 10-12 years for their crimes, and it is not conventional conviction, while they would be given maximum two years for the same crime in Russia, and if they commit it for the first time, their punishment could be conventional.
“So fundamentalists from the Central Asian countries move to Russia, where they feel themselves free,” Silantyev said. He also pointed out to Kazakhstan positive experience in struggling against “prison Jihad” – spreading radical Islamism among convicts under influence of fundamentalist cellmates.
“In Kazakhstan they made special prisons for the latter, thus isolating them from other imprisoned. If Russia has special colonies for former officials of the law enforcement agencies who committed crimes in order to isolate them from other convicts, why can’t we set up the same prisons for Wahabis?” the religious expert wonders.
Researcher of the Volga Center on Regional and Ethnic-Religious Studies of the Russian Strategic Research Institute Vasily Ivanov says that migrants from the Central Asia fall under influence of Russian Wahabis, coming to its territory.
He pointed out to Farhod Khalikov’s story, who came to work from Tajikistan to the Tumen Region, and when he returned to his native village of Kirkuduk, he organized a Wahabi Jamaat there, using ideological knowledge he got in Russia.
“We face such a situation: migrant workers fall under influence of Russian Wahabis and coming back home, they start spreading fundamentalism in their native countries,” the expert stated.
