Press Release
From a Fine to Life Imprisonment: 5 Questions to Russian Intelligence Services

On 22 August 2014, the Investigative Committee of Russia in Chelyabinsk region reported on the completion of the investigation of the criminal case against six members of the international Islamic political party Hizb ut Tahrir. All of them are accused on Art. 282.2 CC RF (Organization of the activity of the extremist body).

On 21 August 2014 in Vakhitovsk District court of Kazan city the next hearing of a criminal case passed. The members of Hizb ut Tahrir are on the dock, and the incriminated article of the Criminal Code is 282.2 (Organization of the activity of the extremist body).

On 5 August 2014, the press service of the Investigative Committee of Russia in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District-Yurga reported that 52 year-old inhabitant of Nizhnevartovsk, the member of Hizb ut Tahrir Oleg Sakhnovskiy was convicted. The court found the Muslim guilty of involvement in the activity of the banned organization (Part 2 Art. 282.2 CC RF) for which he was sentenced to 6 months of correctional labor and to a fine of 50 thousand rubles.

It should be noted that in all three subjects of the Russian Federation both the investigation and the court considered Hizb ut Tahrir an extremist organization and prosecuted their members under the relevant articles of the Russian Criminal Code. That, however, is not surprising, because it is for articles of anti-extremist legislation the prosecution of its members was carried out since the ban of its activity in Russia. However, recently, the assessments of the Russian intelligence services, oddly enough, have strikingly begun differ from each other...

Thus, at the end of June 2014 there appeared reports of arrest of the members of already "terrorist" organization Hizb ut Tahrir in Russian and international media. The six Muslims were accused of a particularly serious crime - Article 205.5 CC RF (Organization of the activity of terrorist body), which sanctions provides life imprisonment.

This means that to the charges in extremism, that for many years accompanied the members of the organization in Russia, now they added the charges in terrorism. The difference is a lifetime. If earlier illegal sentences were often limited to fines and probation, now for exactly the same one faces life imprisonment. For the same recognition of the membership in the party, for the same books seized during the searches, for the same call to Islam, the members of Hizb ut Tahrir are persecuted as extremists or as terrorists and even as revolutionists and putschists. And this despite the fact that, according to a published program documents the work of Hizb ut Tahrir in Russia is limited to mere educational activity!

If you pay attention to how the Russian media mention Hizb ut Tahrir, it becomes clear that first of all the journalists themselves are at a loss by such conflicts on the part of the law enforcement system. If after the next charges in terrorism the media are forced to call the party "terrorist", when there appear the reports of charges in extremism and convictions under anti-extremist articles, journalists have to call the organization "extremist"! That is why we often see that the media, so as not to make a mistake, prefer to call Hizb ut Tahrir a "banned organization".

Dear journalists! Ask yourselves the following questions and ask them to the Russian intelligence services:

1. If you consider Hizb ut Tahrir a terrorist organization, so where are the organized terror acts, whether at least one person died from the hands of its members in Russia or anywhere else?

2. If you consider Hizb ut Tahrir a terrorist organization, so why have they been trying its members in the justice of the peace under extremist Art. 282.2 CC RF for 10 years and sentencing to only small fines?

3. If you consider Hizb ut Tahrir a terrorist organization, so why do all Russian human rights activists and independent experts unanimously assert illegitimacy of such recognition from Russia and fabrication of charges against party members?

4. If you consider Hizb ut Tahrir a terrorist organization, so why is Russia the first and only country in the world, where the party is recognized as such? And it's a given that it operates in more than 50 countries, of which its activities are officially banned only in the countries of Central Asia, and then on charges unrelated to terrorism.

5. If you consider Hizb ut Tahrir a terrorist organization, so how are its members free to work in all the countries of Europe, America, Turkey, Indonesia, Lebanon, Australia, Sudan, Jordan, Palestine, and dozens of other countries? And this despite the fact that in Muslim countries Hizb ut Tahrir actually leads a struggle for political power with the tyrannical regimes in contradistinction to Russia.

Pay attention to the words of those human rights defenders, journalists and experts, who are already acquainted with the activities of the party! These people are totally unengaged by and hard to accuse of bias, because they do not share any ideological positions of Hizb ut Tahrir or political views of the party.

• Maksim Shevchenko, a journalist and public figure, after the massive arrests of the party members in Moscow and the Moscow Region said in a radio broadcast of "Vesti FM" on 12 November 2012 the following: "There is a very important item of nonviolent propaganda of Khilafah "Caliphate" ideas in the Charter of Hizb ut Tahrir ... nowhere in the world Hizb ut Tahrir is fixed as an organizer of any terror acts".

• Vitaliy Ponomarev, Program Director of Memorial Human Rights Center, which is called "Fabrication of criminal cases of Islamic extremism in Russia". He has been studying the party activity since the 1990s and considers Hizb ut Tahrir "a political organization, that does not use any violence for achieving its political goals". Many repressed members of Hizb ut Tahrir in Russia were recognized as political prisoners by Memorial Center.

• Alexander Verkhovskiy, a director of the Sova Information and Analytical Center also openly states about unlawful prosecutions of the members of Hizb ut Tahrir under charges in terrorism.

• Svetlana Gannushkina, a chairman of the Civil Assistance Committee, repeatedly noted that on 14 February 2003 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized Hizb ut Tahrir a terrorist organization in the absence of evidence to the fact.

We invite all independent journalists and public figures to show responsibility and not to help intelligence agencies in their false propaganda. Do not become accomplices in the repressive policies of the authorities and the most severe persecution of the Muslims for their beliefs!

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Russia