As it became known to Kommersant, the Kuzminsky District Court of Moscow is considering a criminal case against six members of the Nurcular international religious association, recognized by the Supreme Court on the initiative of the Prosecutor General’s Office back in April 2008 as extremist and banned on the territory of the Russian Federation. All six are accused of organizing extremist activities, including reading books, which they do not acknowledge.
Residents of Moscow Evgeny Tarasov, Mukazhan Ksyupov, Parviz Zeynalov, Urdash Abdullaev, Ilmir Abdullin and Nikolai Nesterovich, who were accused by the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Southwestern District of the capital of committing a crime under Part 1 and Part 2 of Art. 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of the activities of an extremist organization).
As follows from the indictment, in December 2017, a native of Krasnoyarsk, Evgeny Tarasov, who lives in Moscow, had a criminal intent to create a cell of the international religious association Nurcular.
At the same time, according to the investigation, the individual entrepreneur Tarasov knew that the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation recognized the association as extremist and its activities were banned in Russia. In addition, as it was established during the preliminary investigation, from December 2017 to October 2021, Mr. Tarasov, “acting out of extremist motives and undermining the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the state by his actions, as well as ignoring the court decision that has entered into legal force”, did everything possible for the preservation of the “Nurcular” association and the continuation of its extremist activities.
To this end, according to investigators, the businessman turned his apartment on Volzhsky Boulevard into a “home madrasah”, in which he invited other people for, as the prosecution says, “a gradual transformation of personality and a change in worldview in accordance with the ideology of the teachings of Said Nursi.” All this was done by reading the works of Said Nursi and their collective discussion, “aimed at forming students’ conviction in adherence to certain religious knowledge and views.” It was also established that Nikolai Nesterovich, who repeatedly visited the Nurcular association in Turkey, was engaged in editing and designing covers and texts for Nursi’s books.
According to the testimonies of some witnesses, the religious lessons (dars) of Mr. Tarasov and other members of the banned association were held in the following order: first, reading literature, then prayer, and after that, tea drinking and communication on various religious topics, which lasted for 45 minutes.
According to witnesses for the prosecution, recorded in the materials of the criminal case, the literature of the theologian Nursi “had a negative impact on their worldview and consciousness, increasing the level of aggression towards other social, political and religious groups.”
It should be noted that in 2017, the metropolitan cell “Nurcular” got into the operational development of employees of the main department for countering extremism of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was established that representatives of the association from other regions, including Dagestan and the Omsk region, came to Mr. Tarasov’s apartment. By October 2021, the operatives had collected enough evidence, and they carried out arrests. During the search, numerous books by Said Nursi were confiscated from the suspects. In June 2022, all defendants in the pre-trial detention center were charged in the final version, which was approved by the prosecutor’s office.
According to the lawyers of the defendants, none of them plead guilty to extremism. They hope to get an acquittal.