22:32, 16 September 2004

State officials met with Wahhabis

On September 15, Kabardino-Balkarian state officials arranged a meeting with those whom they consider to be followers of radical Islam and their parents, the Caucasian Knot correspondent was told at the Nalchik town administration. There are 43 names in the list of Wahhabis. They all were kept under special observation after the developments in Beslan.

Interior Minister of the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria Khachim Shogenov called upon the Wahhabis' parents "to stop their children". 54 residents of Kabardino-Balkaria were members of illegal armed units in Chechnya, he said. 24 of them are known to have been killed, several people gave themselves up, and the others are in hiding.

It is worth noting that no one of the present acknowledged being a Wahhabi. Almost all of them expressed bewilderment concerning their being in the "black-list" and stated to have a beard is not corpus delicti. However, according to organizers of the meeting, many mosques have been changed into political discussion clubs, in which believers declared for the change of power in the republic.

Author: Lyudmila Maratova, CK correspondent

Source: Caucasian Knot