GROZNY, September 10. /TASS/. Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Thursday he has appealed against the ruling of a court in Russia’s Far East that declared extremist some surahs in the Quran.
"I have lodged an appeal as envisaged by the law," Kadyrov wrote on his page on a social network.
The head of the North Caucasus republic also responded to the statement of a Russian Prosecutor General’s Office representative that it is unacceptable to insult judges and prosecutors "in the sphere linked to their professional activity."
"I called shaitans [evil spirits] and provocateurs the judge and the prosecutor who took a decision on declaring the Quran "extremist." The document has no relation to their professional activity," he said.
The Chechen leader stressed that instead of protecting the law and Russia’s interests, "they undermine the basis of stability and security by their stupid decisions." "Moreover, they offended in public millions of Russians and one and a half billion Muslims around the world," he said.
Last month, a Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Court judge, Natalya Perchenko, following a lawsuit by Prosecutor Tatyana Bilobrivets, declared as "extremist" a book called Supplication (Dua) to God: its meaning and place in Islam. Experts have found that the Quran texts cited in the book and commentary to them contain the propaganda of Islam’s superiority to other religions.
Al-Fatiha and other surahs in the Quran were the centre of controversy. The term "extremist" was applied to such quotes from the Quran as "It is You we worship and You we ask for help (Al-Fatihah) and "Say, [O Muhammad], ‘I only invoke my Lord and do not associate with Him anyone.’ (Al-Jinn)
On Wednesday, Kadyrov called the judge a "national traitor." Chechen MP of the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, has filed a request to the Prosecutor General’s Office to check whether the activity of the judge and the prosecutor is extremist.