From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 8/30/2007 3:05 AM
Abkhazian Muslims are worried     
Sukhum/Agency Caucasus – The Religious Directorate of Abkhazia voiced its concerns over the governmental attitude towards Muslims that changed considerably after the killing of an imam.

Timur Dziba, Head of the Abkhazian Religious Directorate, told reporters in Sukhum about his talks with officials after an imam and his friend were gunned down in Gudauta on August 17, 2007.
“We, head officials of the Religious Directorate, asked several times senior Abkhazian security officials, along with both the Security Council and the parliament, to make their evaluation of works of the Religious Directorate. The Minister of Interior then stated that there were no complaints about us, because we were not pursuing something that would require legal investigation. We were not working to disseminate Islam in a radical manner, either,” said Dziba and voiced his concern about the way the development of Islam as a religion in Abkhazia gets misinterpreted in the news media. “Daur Mutsba and his wife were the first victims of religious radicalism, though Mutsba was a defender of his country since he was 14. And the news media announced the murder of both Mutsba and his wife as the killing of two people with large ammunition hidden in their home.”
Daur Mutsba, born 1978 in the Adzubja village of Ochamchira province, and his wife Karina Nerseyan, born 1987, were both shot down on July 2 in central Sukhum. Prosecution is still underway. Mutsba worked occasionally on contract as a security officer.
“We officially asked security officials a couple of months ago to take heed of concerns on the part of regular Muslim mosque attendees over their constant exposure to secret practices of surveillance. With the security officials remaining indifferent to our request, however, the result became the killing of Hamzat Gitsba,” said Dziba.
The murder of Gitsba prompted officials of the Religious Directorate to ask President Sergei Bagapsh to order a police investigation into the murder. “Why are we being treated differently than Christians? We are the citizens of Abkhazia, too. Why are we being shot down if we are not affiliated with terrorism? We request that the administration should release an official statement that says any Abkhazians are guaranteed protection from the president and use of force will not become part of efforts at all to solve problems in Abkhazia. Over the past 10 years, we are only seeking public assurance that we are not terrorists; however, to our voice, nobody wants to listen,” officials of the Religious Directorate said at their meeting with the President.  

Hamzat Gitsba, killed at the age of 37, studied geography at the Abkhazia State University, and worked as a teacher for a couple of years at a school as well. Gitsba was actively involved in the war between Georgia and Abkhazia in 1992-1993. He was one of the people with eagerness to end the war in Chechnya, where he stayed for some time during the war. He was imprisoned in Turkey in 1995, too, when he was involved in the hijacking of the vessel Eurasia. When he returned to Abkhazia, he had to ask Russian officials to inform himself about whether he was legally being pursued or not, because he received a cold welcome in his country. The Russian prosecutors then officially replied in a written statement to him that he was under no legal prosecution, a documented proof which Gitsba later submitted to senior Abkhazian security officers. He was afterwards employed as an imam by the Religious Directorate of Abkhazia, which dismissed as false the news reports that Hamzat Gitsba was the brother-in-law of Shamil Basayev.
HH/FT