- Colin Cortbus, Stand For Peace Fellow
A Russian court has banned the most popular translation of the Quran into Russian, in a move likely to spark strong outrage.
The ‘October’ District Court in the Russian black sea-port city of Novorossiysk ruled that Elmir Kuliev’s ‘Meaning of the holy Quran in Russian language’ is “recognized as extremist” and therefore banned under Russian legislation that prevents the dissemination and possession of material deemed “extremist”. The court cited an ‘expert’ assessment by the Forensic Centre at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (MVD) for the Krasnodar Territory, which found that the book contained:
“…statements in which a person or group of persons (in particular, non-Muslims ) is portrayed negatively on grounds related to a particular religion; …. statements which address talking about the advantages of a single person or group of persons to other people on the grounds of religion (particularly the Muslims over non-Muslims ); … statements containing the positive assessment of hostile action of one group of people against another group of people on the basis of religion, specifically, Muslims towards non-Muslims; …statements of an inciting character, which can be understood as calling for hostile and violent actions by one group of people against another group of people on the basis of religion, in particular the Muslims towards non-Muslims .”
The translation is a 2002 work by Elmir Kuliev (sometimes written as Guliev), Director of the Department of Geoculture at the Institute of Strategic Studies of the Caucasus. The publication is widely available across the internet, including on websites such as QuranSource , where it is described as a definite Russian translation of the Quran. Kuliev is considered to be one of the leading contemporary Muslim philosophers in Russia. He has even received the Medal of the Council of Muftis of Russia.
The lawsuit leading to the ban was brought by the transport prosecutor’s office in Novorossiysk under general procedure article 45 of the Russian civil procedure code (which allows a prosecutor to act in the interest of unspecified citizens even where no complaint has been filed). The transport prosecutor is believed to have challenged the refusal of a different prosecutor’s office to institute criminal proceedings on the grounds of an offense under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code (incitement of National, Racial, or Religious Enmity), after the book was delivered by mail order to a local address.
Colin Cortbus, a fellow at counter-extremism organisation Stand for Peace, commented: “The Judge’s decision is a sick and criminal throwback to the dark days of Stalinism and national chauvinism.”
Russia’s highly respected Sova Center, which monitors terrorism in Russia, listed the ruling as a “misuse of anti-extremism law” and described it as “ not only illegal, but ignorant and scandalous”. The proscription puts a number of Russian Muslims at risk of prosecution for merely possessing a copy of their religious scripture. The move is also likely to facilitate further bans on other Quranic texts, including those in Arabic. Over twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the state’s drive to discourage religious practise has not yet been abandoned.
Russian courts have previously provoked international condemnation after attempting to ban the Bagavad Gita, one of Hinduism’s holiest texts.
Russia has long-standing problems with a large domestic far-right scene. Some estimates suggest there are over 100,000 violent neo-Nazi activists in the country, some of whom have committed murders and acts of terrorism against Jews and migrants, as well as Muslims from the Caucasus and central Asia. Far-right sentiment was recently legitimized after a strong election result for maverick politician Alexander Navalny in the recent Moscow mayoral elections. Navalny, who came second in the race, has reportedly compared Caucasian immigrants to cockroaches who could be killed with guns in a videotaped speech and, on his blog, has also described religious Jews as “dandies in fox hats and rags”.
