Witnesses look on as Kyiv's Islamic Cultural Centre is searched on 6 March 2018. Source: Youtube. Last month, Mufti Said Ismagilov, a charismatic and prominent Muslim leader in Ukraine, announced to journalists at a press conference that Muslims in Ukraine were being subjected to “systematic persecution”. The day before, on 6 March, SBU operatives had raided the Islamic Cultural Centre in Kyiv, producing a warrant that authorised a search of the premises for literature “promoting hatred and cruelty, racial, ethnic or religious intolerance and discrimination.”
The raid took place early in the morning, when only one security guard was on site. Some twenty security forces personnel arrived at the Islamic Cultural Centre together with six witnesses and demanded that the library, gymnasium (school) and a little street-side bookshop all be opened up for inspection. While the guard, prevented by the siloviki from informing the centre’s senior staff about what was going on, took some members of the raid party around the premises, the others remained outside. Looking out of the window, the guard saw them breaking down the door of the bookshop.
“I can’t imagine them arriving at the Kyiv Lavra and crowbarring their way into the church shop if no religious representatives were present. That’s inconceivable. But they did it to us,” says Said Ismagilov, who is indignant as he presents CCTV footage of the incident.
