Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 10 – Isa Khamkoyev,
who served as Ingushetia’s mufti for 15 years before his conflict with former
republic head Yunus-Bek Yevkurov led him to resign in July 2019, has now been
elected to the same position after his successor, Abdurakhman Martazanov, died
from the coronavirus.
But the administrative structure he
headed and now heads again officially doesn’t exist as an Ingush court
liquidated the Spiritual Center of Muslims of Ingushetia in January 2020. That action made Ingushetia the only North
Caucasus republic without a Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD), but despite the
court’s decision, the Spiritual Center has continued to function.
Tensions between the muftiate and
the Magas government remain high largely because the muftiate’s leaders have
not been shy about speaking out and the Ingush nationality and religious
affairs minister, Ruslan Volkov (an ethnic Russian who is not a Muslim), has
been openly hostile to the very existence of the MSD.
Nonetheless, Magas has refrained
from blocking the election of a new mufti and has turned a largely blind eye to
the continuing activity of a structure it has no obvious replacement for
largely because it fears that in the absence of a muftiate, the influence of
Islamism radicalism will grow (akcent.site/mneniya/9223).
Meanwhile, in another Ingush
development, a Russian court in Stavropol extended the detention of Ingush
activist Magomed Khamkhoyev, who has been behind bars since April 5, 2019, for
supposedly attacking siloviki at the March 2019 protests. He will now be held
until September 28, although his detention may be extended again (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/352890/).
According to his lawyer, the
Stavropol judge concluded that Khamkhoyev is a flight risk and might try to
intimidate witnesses against him, exactly the same claims Russian judges have made
at each step of his case in the past.
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