Justice fails to work for Muslims

The term provided by the law to perform a check of the fact of beating of a Muslim woman by a police officer is drawing to an end, but the Kabardino-Balkaria prosecutor's office declines to open a criminal case and extends the check period, lawyer Larissa Dorogova told Caucasian Knot. "It has gone as far as the victim's statement being questioned. The prosecutor's office does nothing to identify that man, although the victim can identify him," she said.

The Kabardino-Balkaria prosecutor's office adheres to the same position in all other cases when the rights of Muslim believers are violated, thinks Larissa Dorogova. In particular, she says that a complaint was filed concerning the detention of nine female students for reading the Koran, but the prosecutor's office answered it saw no grounds to take action. There have been other similar cases, according to the lawyer.

Elena Gasiyev, a 19-year-old resident of Nalchik, was detained and delivered to the Nalchik Division of Internal Affairs for wearing a burqa on 20 July. A man in civil clothes who brought her there beat her in spite that she told him that she was pregnant. The woman was thereafter admitted to hospital for maintenance of pregnancy, while her relatives applied to the Kabardino-Balkaria prosecutor's office which, however, refuses to open a criminal case.

• Muslims degraded in Kabardino-Balkaria