Muslim women body-searched by male Russian police officers AFP April 26, 2005
VLASIKAVKAZ, RUSSIA -- A group of young women students who had formed a Koran-reading group at their university in the Russian Caucasian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria were harassed and detained by male police officers, who subjected them to body searches, one of the women said.
Mufti Nafigulla Ashirov, a religious official in charge of Muslims in the Asian parts of Russia, denounced the incident on Moscow Echo radio on Sunday.
One of the women said that she and eight other young women had been detained and questioned for eight hours by police in Nalchik, the capital of the southern republic.
She and her comrades had applied to the rector of the Kabardino-Balkaria state university two months ago to be given a room for their Koran-reading sessions, but had received no answer, she said.
The women, who are studying biology, physics and the humanities, had therefore decided to hold their sessions in an empty room at the university, where they had been meeting two or three times a week.
The student, who asked not to be named, said that on April 15 a university official came into the room and asked them to leave, saying that religious activities were against the regulations.
When they refused, he called the police, she said.
She alleged that the nine were not only questioned for eight hours, but also insulted and subjected to body searches by the male police officers. They were also not allowed to use their mobile telephones, she added.
"Such actions are not likely to strengthen patriotism among the Muslim section of the population," said Ashirov, speaking on Moscow Echo radio station.
The student further said that when information about the incident emerged on the Internet, one of the young women received a phone call from a man who said that he was a police officer, and threatened them with being expelled from the university if they spoke to anyone about it.
Russia is believed to be home to between 15 million and 20 million Muslims.
For many non-Muslim Russians, the religion is seen as being closely linked to terrorism, notably via their perceptions of the long-running conflict in Chechnya, which is also in the southern Caucasus region.
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