Press Release
Imprisonment for Saying the Great Truth
(Translated)

On December 18, 2014, Vakhitov District Court in Kazan ruled to criminalize the best representatives of the Ummah, who have pronounced the word of truth, without fear of the unjust regime. The court shared lies with the security agencies and sentenced members of Hizb ut Tahrir; Ildar Shaykhutdinov and Azat Khasanov for five and a half years, and six and a half years, respectively, in jail for nothing, except for courageously defended the Islamic values and Muslims. The court also sentenced to imprisonment on Ilmir Imayev, age 62 years, for a period of three and a half years without any consideration given to the greyness of his hair, and the verdict came because Ilmir spoke in defense of the people of his religion and was able to draw the attention of the community to the fact that there is a brutal torture of Muslim detainees in Chistobl city.

The reason for the arrest of these Muslims is their devotion to the Lord Almighty and their devotion to their fellow believers, ridiculing their repeated imprisonment because of their call to Islam with Hizb ut Tahrir. Azat Khasanov and Ildar Shaykhutdinov advanced their brothers in saying the word of truth in the face of the unjust ruler. They headed for the General Intelligence Department and for the Government headquarters in order to deliver a direct message on behalf of the Hizb in which it requested to stop the policy of war against Islam. Ilmir Imayev has been threatened several times to imprisonment, if he would not stop exposing the issue of Muslims from Chistobl, who have been tortured to the point where they have become physically disabled; in order to obtain confessions of them, for what they did not commit. More than one roundtable has been held in Moscow and Kazan, which enabled them to draw the attention of lawyers and human rights defenders to this issue. They reached to the names of those involved in torturing Muslims there, which led to their arrest.

These Muslims did what they saw necessary, seeking thereby to please Allah Almighty, because their belief in Allah keeps them from sitting idly towards what Islam is exposed to of distortion, and towards preventing Muslims from practicing their simplest rituals. The Islamic Ummah appreciates this stance; as such attitude is similar to the attitudes of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (saw) and is an example to be followed by Muslims.

The court has also criminalized Muslims for holding a march for cars that raised the banner of Islam in 2012, and criminalized their acquaintance of Islamic books, and raising Islamic slogans on roads and bridges in their actions to protest the ban on the Quran. It is not difficult to note that all the above mentioned matters which they alleged as "crimes" have nothing to do with extremism.

The defense of Islam and its high values is the work of every Muslim. As for Hizb ut Tahrir's members, they worship Allah Almighty by them. But Russia fears the Muslim political activists the fear of fire, especially those who are aware of the nature of the ideology of Islam and working on propagating it to other people. Accordingly, you found it had arranged its hostile policy against Islam in order to make it easy to prosecute members of Hizb ut Tahrir and classifying any of their work as a crime. Because our party is unjustly banned in Russia, its members are being judicially prosecuted, where judges do not require the presence of crimes, but it is sufficient to prove that the person has a relationship with the Hizb, to consider it a violation of the law. When a person does not deny being a member of the Hizb, the rest of the charges take the form of ordinary matter which does not draw attention. The words of Ildar Shaykhutdinov accurately describe what is happening, where he said, "The current issue is a political issue, they sentence us because of our beliefs and political convictions, and in other words, because of the great truth. Other matters such as the judge and utterance they are in order to give this case the nature of the crime. Hizb ut Tahrir has never been in any day a terrorist".

Abu Hurayrah (ra) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (saw) said,

«لا تزال طائفة من أمتي ظاهرة على الحق، لا يضرها من خالفها» "There will always be a group amongst my Ummah who is triumphant upon truth they will not be harmed by those who oppose them." (Reported by Ibn Majah)

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir

in Russia