"There are no repressions against
good Muslims in our country,” Albir Krganov, Mufti of Moscow and the Central
Region of Russia, said in a statement cited by Russia Today on Thursday, August
2.
"Decent Muslims are not being persecuted in our country.”
A US State Department report about
religious freedoms has said that minority faiths are facing discrimination in
Russia.
The report said while the Russian Constitution guarantees
the right to practice religion, "laws and policies restrict religious
freedoms by denying some groups legal status and misidentifying their
literature as extremist."
It accused authorities of using extremism charges to target
minority faiths, detain nonconforming believers or deny them access
to places of worship.
But the Muslim leader insisted that Russian Muslims were not being
targeted by authorities on claims of extremism.
"Sometimes Muslims are invited to testify to police, they can
be treated as witnesses or suspects,” Krganov said.
"But once their innocence is proved, they are released.”
The Russian Federation is home to some 23 million Muslims in the
north of the Caucasus and southern republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and
Dagestan.
Islam is Russia's second-largest religion representing roughly 15
percent of its 145 million predominantly Orthodox population.
