Rapper Islam Zakirov arrested in Moscow (Recidivism)

Rapper Islam Zakirov (Relapse) was arrested in Moscow, who read lines at a rap battle about [бьёт] Russian pregnant woman. Zakirov is accused of inciting ethnic hatred, TASS reports.

Earlier, the Investigative Committee of Russia opened criminal cases of inciting ethnic hatred against two rap artists. These are Sherafgan Sharypov (creative pseudonym Sheraph’gun) and Islam Zakirov (Relapse). According to SC’s suggestion, both musicians called for violent acts on national grounds at their performances.

Rapper Recidiv was detained. After his arrest, he declared on video that he “insulted the Russian nation and apologizes to the Russian people.” The logo of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia is on the video posted online. Zakirov is a native of Krasnoyarsk, but recently lived in Moscow. Both rappers were searched. They deleted their social media accounts. The BRP BATTLE platform, where rappers performed, announced the suspension of its activities for an indefinite period.

Calls to write denunciations of rappers appeared in Telegram channels.

After the initiation of criminal cases against Zakirov and Sharipov, battle rap platforms began to hide videos from their YouTube channels. Access to the video was restricted by Versus, RBL, Inde battle, BRP and Siberian Groove, writes the telegram channel “Ostrozhno, novosti”. “As a security measure for our participants, we have temporarily hidden all our battles to check for questionable content and terms. We will review them and return them as the review progresses, possibly with some censorship,” the Siberian Groove site in Novosibirsk reported to the public.