• After the 2024 fatwa by apparent mufti Akhmad Abdulaev, the police crackdown on anyone wearing niqab has become apparent.
• Armed officers arrest a woman for wearing a niqab and anyone helping them in Muslim-majority Dagestan.
Armed police have arrested a woman for wearing a niqab on the streets of Khasavyurt in Dagestan and have arrested those who came out to protect her.
According to Russian government statistics, about 95% of Dagestan, a state within Russia, has identified as Muslim.
The arrest comes after last year’s fatwa issued by Dagestan’s so-called mufti, Akhmad Abdulaev, who said he was introducing a temporary ban on the niqab after a request from Russia’s Ministry of nationality policy and religious affairs.
The ban came after simultaneous terrorist attacks targeting churches and synagogues last year on June 23, killing 23 people, in which some reports suggest one of the attackers planned to escape wearing a niqab.
The mufti Ahmad Abdulaev said the ban will remain in place “until the identified threats are eliminated and a new theological conclusion is reached”.
Very few women in Dagestan wear face veils, and this ban, which was suggested to be temporary, still seems to be in place with no end in sight.
In other areas of Russia there is no federal ban on niqab, and places that do have restrictions on religious clothing are constrained to universities and schools rather than public areas like roads and footpaths.
The niqab is not banned in many major Western countries that pride themselves on their secular systems, such as the UK, the US, and Spain. Yet Russia, which has a significantly higher number of Muslims, and Dagestan alone, which has a higher number of Muslims than many Western countries put together, still seem to be enforcing this ban, which was a reaction to an incident a year ago.
