Muslims lash out at ban on religious books

The Russian Council of Muftis has voiced its protest against banning some Muslim religious books in the country as extremist. "We consider the prohibition of religious literature as an attempt at the revival of total ideological control,” the body said in a statement published on its website. "Such practice is unacceptable in a democratic society…and is an alarm signal for Russian citizens,” the council pointed out.

The Islamic scholars’ anxiety followed a ruling made earlier by a district court in Orenburg which banned 65 religious and historic books issued by "almost all Islamic publishers in Russia.”

According to the council, the prosecutor and the judge made the decision "behind-the-scenes”: not a single author, translator or publisher was invited to the trial as a defendant. (...)