Russian Press - Behind the Headlines, July 19

© Alex StefflerRussian Press - Behind the Headlines, July 19
Russian Press - Behind the Headlines, July 19 - Sputnik International
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Top Officials’ Telephones Tapped in Russia Again \ Volunteers Compared With Vampires \ “Forest” Muslims Dictate Religious Fashion in Tatarstan

Moskovskiye Novosti

Top Officials’ Telephones Tapped in Russia Again

The FSB has detained a former security officer and a private detective for collecting personal information about high-ranking officials. Experts say the prices on the Russian black market of private information are affordable.

Former security officer Alexei Smirnov and private investigator Alexei Mikhailenko hacked telephones and shadowed officials, a law-enforcement source told MN.

The two men have been detained and their apartments have been searched. The offices of the private security firm, Belgan, which the FSB claims was complicit, have been searched, too. Belgan, most of whose employees are former FSB and Interior Ministry officers, also protects VIPs, notably the family members of foreign dignitaries, as well as big business executives and public figures.

Surveillance and wiretapping could be part of clan fighting. Telephone hacking was widely used to collect compromising information in the 1990s and the early 2000s. In 2001, the newspaper Stringer, which was allegedly affiliated with the head of Boris Yeltsin’s security service, Alexander Korzhakov, published the tapped conversations of Alexander Voloshin, then chief of Vladimir Putin’s staff. Most of the recent victims are opposition leaders. Late last year, the media published tapped conversations of Boris Nemtsov, in which he slammed his colleagues.

“When my conversations were published, I sent a request to Investigative Committee head Bastrykin and MPs Gennady Gudkov and Ilya Ponomarev filed their inquiries,” Nemtsov said. “The case was forwarded to major cases investigator Denis Savelyev. They questioned many people, including my interlocutors and the bosses of LifeNews, who published the conversations.” But the case went inactive by the summer, and Savelyev told Nemtsov that the case had been taken from him.

Gennady Gudkov, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Corruption, claims his telephone had been tapped and that he had been watched. He also said that he had “received requests to hack telephones. I don’t do it, but it’s easy to find those who do,” Gudkov told MN. “There are corrupt officials, mostly in the Interior Ministry, who have the technology.”

“Every department has a price list,” he said. “The security services charge $15,000 a month for wire tapping. The police do it cheaper, probably for $1,500-$2,000, irrespective of the rank of the person whose telephone you want tapped.”

Gudkov said that only the KGB could tap telephones in Soviet times, but that now all Russian security services can do it. He said the market for private information has developed because there is no control system for apprehending the contracting parties or the executors. “There is no control because the top officials at these agencies are involved,” Gudkov said.

Security expert Igor Korotchenko, chairman of the Public Council at the Defense Ministry and editor-in-chief of National Defense magazine, said senior officials at security agencies often order their subordinates to tap telephones. “The subordinates never ask why, so the instigators can only be exposed if you somehow get the necessary information,” Korotchenko said.


Moskovsky Komsomolets

Volunteers Compared With Vampires

Some of the people involved in disaster relief efforts in Krymsk have deliberately incited panic. These were Maxim Mishchenko’s words at a meeting of Russia’s Public Chamber. Mishchenko is a leader at the organization, Rossiya Molodaya (Young Russia).

The authors of a bill that would regulate volunteer activity believe that these efforts need some oversight. However, many feel the bill has antidemocratic implications, and is cause for concern. The Public Chamber discussed the “volunteer bill” on Wednesday.

“By changing laws in favor of unevolved ideas, we have already ended up with forests and rivers that have no owners,” said Alexei Yaroshenko, head of Greenpeace Russia’s forest department. He said the fire-prevention service law had thwarted volunteer activity in this area, but no workable system had emerged.

The bill’s content was drafted long before the tragedy in Krymsk, southern Russia, but the idea is more relevant now. Financial compensation for volunteer activity expenses, including travel and accommodation, has become the main argument in favor of the law. The bill’s proponents say many potential volunteers are unable to help after a disaster because they cannot afford the associated expenses. The bill suggests that a legal entity should manage volunteers and compensate for their expenses.

Mishchenko made an unexpected claim at the meeting. He described what he thought was the clearly abnormal psychological state of Krymsk’s residents. Everyone claimed that the government had discharged water from a nearby reservoir, Mishchenko said, and that many people never received compensation after the 2002 flood. He suggested that their behavior was a way of bargaining with the government over financial assistance. “Many people posing as volunteers incited panic. Of course, most volunteers have good intentions, but there are also vampires who thrive on negativity,” Mishchenko said.

Yaroshenko said Greenpeace Russia advocates blocking the bill in its current form. “If it’s approved by the State Duma, the vampires and even something worse will show up, as Mr. Mishchenko suggests,” Yaroshenko added.

Many types of volunteer activity listed in the bill were also criticized. Some of volunteer activities, including the loading of humanitarian relief aid, were overlooked. Irina Vorobyova, a volunteer coordinator, said she wouldn’t be called a volunteer under the new law even if she is looking for missing children in a forest.

Vorobyova said volunteers were the only social category not affected by corruption. “These new amendments would change that. Right now, volunteers from my group are looking for two people in forests. Will we have to wait for approval from some agency when every minute counts? Will I have to obtain a permit to look for a dying person in the forest?”

Legislative action on the bill is to be resolved by September. Although it will reportedly be modified, volunteer activists believe it should be shelved, permanently.


Nezavisimaya Gazeta

“Forest” Muslims Dictate Religious Fashion in Tatarstan

Not too many years back, a dark-skinned man with a thick beard and a Caucasian accent would have struck fear into the hearts of most worshippers at Kazan’s mosques. Now Muslims from Chechnya and Dagestan are becoming spiritual gurus for many Tatar fellow believers.

The growing influence of Muslims from the Caucasus is linked to an edict issued by Doku Umarov in 2011 that says Caucasian mujahideen should resettle in the Volga valley to raise local Muslims for a holy jihad to create the province of Idel-Ural within the larger Caucasus. This Tatar province would align with the borders of the Golden Horde, which is flattering to local nationalists who have long dreamed of a Tatarstan independent from Russia. Trends in Tatarsatan over the past eighteen months indicate that the fantasies of a Chechen warlord may not be very far fetched after all.

Analysts polled by Nezavisimaya Gazeta believe that people with a “forest” background in the Caucasus have strong influence in ten of the more than 50 mosques in Kazan. Yesterday’s mujahideen are resettling in Tatarstan and neighboring regions among local Muslims, and disseminate the religious ideology common in the Caucasus.

What’s more, these are not the traditional ideas of Islam that are found in the Caucasus but a variation with a strong military component. It is no surprise that the teachings of Abu Umar Sasitlinsky, considered one of the most popular preachers in Dagestan, are being inculcated among Tatar youth.

Before the new mufti, Ildus Faizov, assumed office on the Religious Board of Tatarstan’s Muslims, “forest” Muslim brothers had no problem finding shelter even at official madrasahs – Islamic religious schools. In response, Faizov launched an anti-Wahhabi policy among the Muslim clergy. In spite of this, religious radicals have remained influential. The Tatar mufti office is losing the ideological struggle for the hearts and minds of Tatar youth who have recently taken to fashion trends that suggest a political bond with those from the Caucasus. On social networks, Tatar nationalists urge young people to emulate their peers from Chechnya and Dagestan with their clothes and behavior to produce a shocking effect on people around them, especially Russians. Young men in T-shirts displaying challenging inscriptions “I am Tatar” or “100% Tatar” pose for photos with a raised index finger (a symbol of one god), like North Caucasus militants. Yesterday’s mujahideen look for employment with private security agencies to have ready access to arms.

The authorities in Tatarstan try to downplay this growing radical trend and the increasing Caucasian penetration into the Muslim community. At a recent meeting of the regional heads of the Volga Federal Area it was pointed out that the level of  religious extremism in Tatarstan is low. But posters displayed everywhere in Kazan are announcing an anti-terrorist drill scheduled for the end of July. Perhaps the drill’s objectives and scenario will show how security services view the problem of Wahhabi penetration – as a theoretical or a practical threat.

 

RIA Novosti is not responsible for the content of outside sources.

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