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Putin signs law that bans recognition of holy books as extremist

The bill came as a reaction to a verdict passed by a Russian judge who considered quotes from the Quran to be extremist

© ITAR-TASS/Vasily Alexandrov

MOSCOW, November 23 /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a bill banning the recognition of the texts of the Bible, the Quran, the Tanaha and the Ganjura as extremist materials into a law.

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The Russian president submitted the bill the text of which has been published at the legal information portal on October 14 in reaction to a verdict passed by a judge in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the Far East, in August: she considered quotes from the Quran to be extremist.

The decision caused great public controversy. The judge ruled that the book titled "Prayer (dua or supplication) to God: its Meaning and Place in Islam" and some quotes from the Quran as extremist. After that, Chechen Leader Ramzan Kadyrov called the judge and the prosecutors devils and provocateurs and appealed the ruling in court.

The head of the Republic of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, also condemned the judge for the verdict.

On September 11, the prosecutor of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk addressed a complaint to the judge’s ruling explaining that the prosecutors had asked the court to consider the opinion of the book’s author to be extremist but not the quotes from the Quran.

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