Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 9
A Russian man who publicly burnt a copy of the Quran was jailed for three and a half years on Tuesday in the Russian region of Chechnya.
The case of Nikita Zhuravel drew international attention last year when Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov published a video in which his son Adam was shown beating and kicking the defendant while he was in prison awaiting trial.
Russian media outlet SOTA Vision published video showing Zhuravel standing in a white-barred courtroom cage to listen to the sentence.
He was then shown being told by a reporter to apologise, to which he responded: “I ask for forgiveness from all Muslims for insulting their religious feelings by my action.”
Zhuravel, 20, was detained in May 2023 under a law against offending religious believers’ feelings after he burned a copy of the Koran outside a mosque in the Russian city of Volgograd, 800 km (500 miles) from Grozny.
Russian investigators transferred his case to Chechnya. The Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, said this was because they received many messages from Chechnya residents asking to be designated injured parties.
Chechnya has an overwhelmingly Muslim population and its pro-Kremlin leader Kadyrov has portrayed himself as Russia’s foremost defender of the Islamic faith.
State news agency TASS reported that Zhuravel pleaded guilty to the charges, repeatedly apologised in court, and said he had not thought about the consequences of his actions. The Investigative Committee has said that he was paid to burn the Quran by Ukrainian intelligence.
Source: Reuters
