‘Shariat Patrol’ Controlled Dagestani Village ‘for More than a Decade,’ Investigators Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 24 – The Investigative Committee of Dagestan have arrested three residents of the village of Gubden for operating as “a Shariat patrol” that kept more than 10,000 residents of that settlement and surrounding territory in thrall “for more than a decade,” Elizaveta Chukharova says.

            The three joined the group in 2019, the North Caucasus journalist now living in Prgue says; but investigators say it had existed since 2015 and over the decade had “patrolled the village, monitored the appearance of residents, clothing and behavior and called those deemed ‘unrighteous’ in for conversations” (oc-media.org/three-members-of-so-called-sharia-patrol-identified-in-daghestan/).

            Two things are striking about these arrests, which are likely to lead to sentences of as much as seven years each behind bars. On the one hand, the Shariat patrol had operated in Gubden for so long despite repeated interventions by the police, and thus the arrest of only three people suggests there is more support for it than just those now under detention.

            And on the other, as Chukharova points out, Gubden isn’t unique. There have been similar cases in other republics of the North Caucasus in recent years, most prominently in Kabardino-Balkaria, yet another sign of the spread of this Salafist phenomenon and the unwillingness or inability of officials to do much about it.

            The Gubden arrests are thus likely more for show than an effective means of countering this spread of Islamist ideas, yet one more reason to conclude that Dagestan and its neighbors have not become the islands of secular authority, law and order that Moscow officials routinely claim.