A rally of Muslims against police raids took place in the center of Moscow

A spontaneous rally of Muslims against police raids in mosques took place in the center of Moscow on Friday. Believers are unhappy with the fact that, under the guise of checking documents to identify illegal immigrants, the police come to mosques right during prayer, interrupting the religious ceremony, do not undress before the entrance and behave rudely.

The march, in which several hundred people took part, started at the historic mosque on Bolshaya Tatarskaya Street. According to the Telegram channel “Podyom”, the police have strengthened the security of the mosque and its surroundings, but no arrests have been reported. Muslims went to the protest action after Friday noon prayer. They chanted: “Allah is great.”

The Telegram channel “Taxi Ombudsman”, dedicated to the work of transportation services, published a document on the letterhead of the Moscow Department of Transport, which the capital’s authorities allegedly sent to the taxi service. It refers to the preparation of an unauthorized rally of Muslims. The management of taxi services was asked to conduct explanatory work with “working migrants” and to stop attempts to go to the rally.

On July 14, the police came to a mosque in the city of Dzerzhinsky near Moscow to check the documents of believers. The law enforcement officers entered the building during the prayer and did not take off their clothes, which contradicts the norms of Islam. Earlier, on July 7, riot police entered the mosque in Kotelnyky during the service and doused the believers with foam from a fire extinguisher.

The actions of the police were condemned by the Spiritual Administration of Muslims, as well as by the heads of Dagestan and Chechnya, Sergey Melikov and Ramzan Kadyrov.