In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful!
Every nation has the right to express its will!
My twin brother Nafis with me
We are the twins, named Rafis and Nafis Kashapov. In the 90sof the 20th century we were successful businessmen and rendered great financial help to revive and develop the Tatar language and culture. We supported the development of the national language, culture, religion, traditions, education, science and mass media. We sponsored a lot of writers, actors, scientists, orphan homes, disabled persons and Tatar expat communities in the countries near and far abroad. Million copies of various books and brochures were printed and distributed with our help. We tried to render humanitarian help to the nations which suffered from military conflicts and deportations (such nations as the Chechen, the Ingushetian, the Abkhazian, the Crimean Tatars, the Azerbaijanian from Nagornyi Karabakh and those who suffered from the shooting of the White House). We spent a lot on campaigns to defend the former political prisoners of different nations. We helped schoolchildren and students from Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, Mari-El and Mordovia to visit the historical monuments of our ancestors in the city of Bulgar for about 15 years.
The city of Bulgar
The Volgian Bulgaria is our first country in the territory of the Volga region and Ural, where in 922 the religion of Islam was embraced.
The Tatar-Bashkir festival Sabantui was organized and sponsored in Russia and its neighboring countries. It is worth saying, that Sabantui was organized for the first time in several regions. Lately, our initiative was seized with the authorities of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. In these latter days Sabantui becomes a very popular festival which is celebrated not only in Russia but all over the world. Sabantui is the world’s national festival of Tatars and Bashkirs, which became a public holiday in Tatarstan, a federal holiday in the Russian Federation and an official state holiday in many countries all over the world. More than that, on the initiative of the several Tatar communities Sabantui is organized in such cities as New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Berlin, Montreal, Toronto, Prague, Istanbul, Riga and many other foreign countries.
At the beginning of every academic year the headquarter of the Tatar Public Centre (TPC) in Naberezhnye Chelny announced the competition «Tatarstan is my native country». The aim of the competition is to bring up respect and love for our native republic. It helps to develop pride with the history and culture of our nation, the greatest achievements of our ancestors and contemporaries. The competition revives the sense of national pride in schoolchildren.
Such important and necessary patriotic senses will appear from the early ages if children study and perceive the most important historical events which took place earlier and nowadays. For a reason, people say «Every nation that forgot its past has no future». It is impossible to build any worthy future if you don’t know the true past history of your nation. Schoolchildren are our future and our hope for better life.
The Tatar Public Centre (TPC) organizes such great Islamic holidays as Uraza-bairam and Kurban-bairam (a holiday of sacrifice).
Aslan Mashadov, the president of the Chechen Republic, with me
Sanctions and terror of the Tatar public and political organizations by the security agencies.
From 1990 to 2000 a lot of searches were held in the house(Ilichevka, Tukaevskiy district, Tatarstan, Russia) where the Kashapov brothers (Rinat, Nafis, Rafis, Ruzalin) lived and in their shopping centre «Prometei» was situated. Security services shut off gas, electricity and water repeatedly in order to expel the brothers from the house. Numerous meetings were organized with the leaders of the public and political organizations, parties, religious public figures, journalists and foreign diplomats all over the world in the house in Ilichevka. Security services of the Russian Federation tried to limit the Kashapov brothers’ public activity. The Members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Committee for State Security forced their way to the shopping centre «Prometei» illegally four times. More than that, numerous checks, arranged in the shopping centre with the fire, sanitary, internal revenue emergencies, prevented the brothers from working. At the end of 2000, on the initiative of the security agencies, the shopping centre was imposed great penalty, which forced the brothers to close «Prometei».
On the 2nd of July 2000 on the birthday of Rafis and Nafis Kashapovy, the headquarters of TPC was besieged (Address: Novyi gorod, block 17/10) by the fire emergency and Special Police Force. This special-forced raid was organized by three officers of the Federal Security Service of Russia. During this raid 15 militants of the TPC suffered physically and morally.
On the 29th of May 2002 an organized raid to the new headquarter of the TPC (Address: Novyi gorod, block 18/10, the apartment of the wife Nurziya) was arranged by a group of people in black masks. During this raid 6 members of the TPC were beaten terribly. I got 18(eighteen) bone fractures, of which three were on the head, concussion of the brain, head injury. After that I was delivered to the intensive care department in hospital. As a result, Gabdulla Shaisultanov became an in capacitated person of the first group, Rashit Hafizov died and Saniya Vahitova became an disabled person and is still undergoing treatment.
On the 15th of November 2003 I was knocked down with a car in Naberezhnye Chelny, not far from the city hall and got concussion of the brain repeatedly. It is supposed that this was organized with the security services.
On the 25th of March 2003 I was arrested because of the framed-up case on the booklets that TPC printed. I was delivered to the pretrial detention centre and accused according to section number 282 of the Criminal Code. In accordance with the existing legislation I was to be released after a written undertaking not to leave the place. More than that, I was ill and need an intensive cure and peace after head injury. But the authorities showed severe cruelty and continued keeping me under detention. In the cell of the pretrial detention centre number 3 in Bugulma I was kept together with the people who had made an attack on the TPC. I supposed it was a kind of provocation from the people who had fabricated my case and exclusively from the chief of the city hall, the Federal Security Service, Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Public Prosecution Office. Possibly they hoped to provoke a confrontation and wished that I would be killed.
On the 25th of March 2003 numerous searches were made in the apartments of the TPC leaders and my relatives. They were frightened and blackmailed.
The city court in Naberezhnye Chelny declared that I must be delivered to the mental hospital for assessment in Kazan. I knew a lot of cases when healthy people lost their health and legal capacity after that mental hospital. Political prisoners were kept there on the ground of heeling and they were disabled morally, physically and psychologically. That’s why I was absolutely against this decision, more than that, none of my relatives and friends gave their oral or written agreement according to the law. Sergey Kovalev, a deputy of our State Duma and a famous human right activist, asked Kafil Amirov, a public prosecutor of the Republic of Tatarstan, to release me from under guard under his responsibility. On the 26th of May 2003 I was transferred from Bugulma to Kazan and sent to the mental hospital in Kazan. On the 27th of May 2003 I began my hunger strike – complete refusal from water and food. I asked Nail Yanushev, a doctor of the mental hospital to inform my lawyers, Rashid Yagafarov, a chairman of the TPC, and my relatives about my hunger strike. But the doctor said nothing. On the 29th of May 2003 my brother and wife achieved the permission to visit me only because of the public notice of opposition. They saw my severe condition and got to know about my hunger strike during their visit. My wife and twin-brother were shocked as I had severe condition and lost consciousness sometimes. The aim of the Federal Security Service of Russia was to destroy my personality morally and physically and prevented me from continuing my public activity. I was under arrest for 3 months and 8 days. I was released from the pretrial detention centre and the mental hospital owing to the massive protest of human right activists and wide public defense from the countries near and far abroad. Valentin Gefter, a director of the Institute of Human Rights by Moscow-Helsinkian group, came out to the first sitting of the court. He noticed that people with oppositional views fall under pursuits in Russia. As a result the court absolved me and the public prosecution office apologized for groundless prosecution. The doctors from the mental hospital confirmed my positive psychological state. After that I understood that during Vladimir Putin’s government dissatisfied people are expected to be killed, tortured in prison and mental hospital, and those who are dissatisfied will become slaves or go to the government.
On the 2nd of September 2004 the case of the breakup of TPC headquarter in Chelny came on in the court of Nab. Chelny. Many important people were not allowed to attend the court. Among these people were a chairman of the TPC, the members of the board, the activists of the TPC and the reporters from the radio «Azatlyk» (Freedom), the newspapers «Avtocity», «Alabuga Nury», «Chelny Ltd.» and TV channels «Efir» and «STV».
Lately, the media war against TPC was led with the help of mass media. On the 9th of December 2004 during the program on the channel «Efir» the reporter said: «A chairman of nonexistent TPC, Rafis Kashapov». It was declared numerously at the time of the programs on the channels «TNV», «Efir-Kazan», «Tatarstan-Russia» that the headquarter of the TPC was liquidated and the case was closed. But there is a provision in the Constitution of the Russian Federation where it says that the headquarters are not to be liquidated. And there is a provision that when any headquarter is liquidated one can continue working on a voluntary basis according to the regulations of the TPC. We appealed about the liquidation of our headquarter to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and our complain is at the stage of investigation.
On the 14th of October we planned to go to Kazan to celebrate Memorial Day. But at 14.30 my fifteen year old son and I were arrested at the bus station in Nab. Chelny. The officers of Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service of Russia explained the reason of my arrest. They said that a Georgian recidivist thief escaped from a penal institution and I bore resemblance with him. We spent 8 hours in the central headquarters of the Directorate of Internal Affairs. Lately, the members of the Federal Security Service said nothing about the reasons of my arrest. As a result, our trip to Kazan failed. Every year the main events of Memorial Day are held in Kazan. The gathering and funeral meeting begin at 10 o’clock at Freedom Square. After the end of the meeting a demonstration from Freedom Square to the Kremlin takes place. A prayer in honor of our ancestors who sacrificed their lives defending our country is held in Kul Sharif (the mosque which has recently been reconstructed).
The History of Memorial Day. On the 15th of October 1552 the capital city of the Kazan Khanate gave in after 41 days of the heroic defence and violent siege. The Russian Army if Ivan IV that counted 150 thousand soldiers fought against the army of Yediger with 30 thousand soldiers, including the Tatars, the Nogayan, the Udmurts, the Mordovians, the Chuvashes and the Mariyan. During the siege and the storm practically all the city’s defenders were killed. People were fighting for every street and every house. The city of Kazan underwent a complete looting. The conquerors destroyed everything that could be destroyed with terrible vandalism. All the remaining people among which were old people, children and wounded men were killed cruelly according to the order of the Tsar. Women and infants were carried away as slaves. An old city was destroyed. All the libraries, mosques, schools, madrassas were crashed. All the records and works of art burnt down. This day is Memorial Day in honor of the people who died defending the city of Kazan. It is a sorrowful date in the history of the Tatars and every nation, lived in the territory of the Kazan khanate.
15th of October is Memorial Day of the Tatars
On the 6th of February 2007 a protest action against the destruction of the Tatar grammar school took place at 13.00 in Ufa in the Republic of Bashkortostan. The action was organized with the consolidated opposition of Bashkortostan. Mazit Huzin, a chairman of the Council of the Union of the Tatar public organizations in Bashkortostan invited Aidar Halim, Fauziya Bairamova, Talgat Ahmadishin from Nab. Chelny to this action. But at that day at 3.30 the bus driver, who was to take us to Ufa called and informed us that our trip failed because all the wheels of Volkswagen bus had been cut. I went to the bus station to order a taxi but a taxi driver refused to take me. He said that special services looked after the bus station and he would be arrested if he drove us to Ufa.
Over 300 thousand Tatars live in the city of Ufa. By numerous demands, Ramil Bignov, a businessman and a chairman of the coordinating headquarter of opposition, gave his office under construction for a Tatar grammar school. The primary cost of the project was 20 million roubles. Then the authorities of Bashkortostan destroyed the building of the grammar school illegally and deliberately. This act infringed the rights of 1.5 million Tatars living in the Republic. On the 7th of February during the regular meeting of the TPC activists estimated this destruction as the action which returns us to the times of World War II. It was the time when Adolph Hitler destroyed all the educational institutions and cultural centres belonging to the German nation.
On the 7th of April 2008 the security agencies of Russia incriminated and initiated a case against me according to Section 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The section contemplates fomentation of international and interfaith discord. The reason of initiating the case was an illegal and unapproved visit of a member of clergy to maternity home number 1 to asperse new born children in Nab. Chelny. In this maternity home Muslim children were kept. The Muslims took the ceremony for christening, which means aspersion of a thing or a person with water. But the maternity patients didn’t know the structure and quality of the used water. The Muslim community of Nab. Chelny estimated this act as the action of vandalism and sacrilegious attitude to a human personality. On the 24th of April 2009 the court awarded a sentence according to the fact of the announcment named «No Christianization» which appeared on the Internet. On the 26th of January 2008 I was found guilty according to section 282 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (excitement of hatred and enmity) and received a 1 year suspended prison sentence.
Religious institutions stand apart from the government and are equal among the law. But a church official was in the public institution and offended rudely all the Muslim women. More than that, being in nonsterile clothes he disturbed sanitary conditions of the maternity home.
Political pursuit of the members of the Tatars’ Milli Mejlis conference.
On the 4th of January 2009 at 9 o’clock the members of the police and the Federal Security Service of Russia began to search simultaneously the flats of the activists of the national movement, the journalists and human right activists. Among which were Fauziya Bairamova, a chairman of the Tatars’ Milli Mejlis, Faik Taziev, a deputy of Milli Mejlis, Zinnur Agliullin, an ex-charman of the TPC, Damir Shaihetdinov, a chief editor of the newspaper «Chally Yashlare» (The youth of Chelny). On the 20th of December 2008 a number of documents and the appeal about the independence of Tatarstan were adopted in an expanded session of Milli Mejlis. The appeal was based on the Declaration of Sovereignty of Tatarstan dated 30.08.1990 and the results of the referendum, where 61.4% people voted for the sovereignty of Tatarstan. The trial of Fauziya Bairamova, accused of stirring of international enmity ended. She received a 1 year suspended prison sentence.
On the 13th of August 2009 my car was stopped by the members of the Federal Authority for Road Traffic Safety near KamAZ plant. They explained that my car was in the database of the Federal Security Service. They warned that the police would come soon. After they came, Rustam Inamdganov, a senior officer requested the number of the engine. My driver offered to check the number there. But Inamdganov refused saying that he wasn’t a qualified specialist. They took the driver’s license and all the car’s documents. They conducted us to the mechanic station and checked the numbers themselves. Police officers took the car’s number and evacuated the car to a penalty station. So, my new car was arrested though it was in an ideal technical condition. Previously, on the 3d of August 2009 I broke my leg and used crutches while organizing an excursion. Rustam Inamdganov and his colleagues left me on crutches outside the city and went away. The security services tried to beat me morally and physically. They took away my car and prevented me from organizing the excursion. In spite of all the problems the excursion on 2 buses to Ish-Bubi, a historical Muslim centre of Tatarstan in Agryz, took place. About 90 people (schoolchildren, students, journalists, public persons, writers, senior people) from Nab. Chelny and delegations from nearby cities and districts took part in the trip.
On the 30th of April 2011 the meeting organized by the parents of Russian-speaking children was held in Victory Park in Nab. Chelny. The parents demanded equal opportunities in learning the Russian language as in many other districts of the Russian Federation. Zinnur Agliullin, a Tatar prisoner of conscience, together with his teammates visited this meeting with their banners in support of the Tatar language as well. At the present time there is a trial of 60 year old Zinnur Agliullin. He is accused according to Section 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (excitement of hatred or enmity as well as abasement of human dignity). According to the investigation he offended publicly several Russian-speaking people and humbled them by racial mark. By that time 175 Tatar schools and grammar schools had been closed in Tatarstan and more than 700 schools all over Russia. Previously, the Tatars were prevented from writing in the Latin alphabet and opening the Tatar University. Several independent mass media were closed. After the meeting the TPC and the Union of the Tatar Youth «Azatlyk» sent a letter to the United Nations secretary-general Pan Gi Mun. The letter was sent in support of Nadir Bekirov, a president of the Fund of Researches and Support of indigenuous people of the Crimea. It is explained in detail about the situation of genesis of indigenuous people in Russia.
Special-order criminal cases, assaults and beating were directed not only to me.
Marat Mulyukov, a first chairman of Kazan TPC, and Gayal Murtazin, one of the leaders of the TPC, as well as Shakirzyan Zalyaev, a chairman of the TPC in Aznakaevo and Halil Ayupov, a chairman of the TPC in Nizhnekamsk were beaten and harmed seriously. In 1999 the car with Fauziya Bairamova and Gabdulla hazrat Galiullin was involved in a specially provoked accident. Bairamova broke her arm and spine. Aidar Halim, a chairman of Milli Medjlis and a publicist, was beaten with a group of unknown people in black masks in Bashkortostan. He received fractured ribs and was admitted to hospital. On the 24th of June 2011 security services of Russia arrested Nail Nabiullin, a chairman of the Union of the Tatar Youth «Azatlyk», near his home in Kazan early in the morning. They fabricated the case and he was put to prison for 3 days. My twin brother Nafis Kashapov, was forced to go to the Ukraine as he couldn’t bear the pressure of the special services of Russia. He lives there for seven years. He takes part in the meetings of the Crimean Tatars and the Ukrainians and waits for the decision of the American Congress about his political asylum. By the way, with the regime of Putin more and more people began to move away abroad. All these facts show (an organized and systematic nature of these assaults) that security agencies organize systematic assaults on the members of the opposition movement. In spite of the most dreadful pressure the Tatar public and political organizations continue their struggle for the Tatars’ rights, opening the National University, using the Latin alphabet, taking the Tatar language for a national language, mounting the monument for the defenders of Kazan in 1552, for mass media freedom and publishing books.
The place, where the memorial to Kazan defenders in 1552 must be mounted
52 year old Sergey Nazarov has recently been sent to hospital with disruption of straight intestine. Before he died, he said that the policemen raped him with a bottle of champaigne in the police district «Dalnyi». The Russian authorities began their examinations when this case made a fuss in mass media. I want to attract attention of all the people who are not indifferent to the Muslims’ fate (especially in Bashkortostan and the Caucasus) to the cruel actions of security services and police.
Last year Fanzil Ahmetshin, a vice chairman of the executive committee of the Bashkirs’ Worldwide Kurultai (union), a chairman of the Youth Council of this organization and a participant of the benefit «Children of Somali», was arrested in Ufa according to the fabricated case.
According to the numerous reports and statements practicing Muslims of Bashkortostan are tortured and threatened with physical rape in the departments named the Federal Security Service of Russia. They are beaten severely till spontaneous defecation. Policemen fill the mouths with green bacon, burn Muslims’ beards, tear the pages of the Koran and promise to throw them to lavatory. Immobilized people are beaten with sticks, bottles and shoes by a person or with a group of people. It is hard to enumerate all kinds of refined tortures. The so-called reason for this cruel brutality of executioners: as if they have found drugs or weapon. And we call it stability.
Every nation has the right for democratic formation where people live in spite of the difference of race, gender, religion and color of skin. The formation which can provide abidance of human rights and fundamental democratic liberty for everyone. We continue to fight against fascism and racialism in spite of all the difficulties. We hope we will succeed, Inshallah. We want our public and political activity to be highlighted and not to be intersected with the power of Putin. I want every child to know his language, history, culture and religion.
Our organization is in information blockade for many years, but we need financial help to organize and conduct public actions and activity. We ask all the non-indifferent people support our activity and send the information about our problems to mass media.
Rafis Kashapov, a chairman of the TPC headquarter in Nab. Chelny
Tatarstan, Naberezhnye Chelny
Cell phone number: 8 906 330 47 73
e-mail: tatar_center@yahoo.com
Adress:
Kashapov Rafis Rafailovich
ZIP 423832, 216 apt., 52/41 house, Druzhby Narodov avenue,
Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan, Russia
Visa electron card number: 4276 8620 1210 9247
MasterCard number: 5331 5728 2584 1056 (Ilyuza95@inbox.ru)
PUBLICATION INFORMATION TATAR PUBLIC CENTER
INFORMATION IN RUSSIAN: http://tatar-centr.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post_18.html
Every nation has the right to express its will!
My twin brother Nafis with meWe are the twins, named Rafis and Nafis Kashapov. In the 90sof the 20th century we were successful businessmen and rendered great financial help to revive and develop the Tatar language and culture. We supported the development of the national language, culture, religion, traditions, education, science and mass media. We sponsored a lot of writers, actors, scientists, orphan homes, disabled persons and Tatar expat communities in the countries near and far abroad. Million copies of various books and brochures were printed and distributed with our help. We tried to render humanitarian help to the nations which suffered from military conflicts and deportations (such nations as the Chechen, the Ingushetian, the Abkhazian, the Crimean Tatars, the Azerbaijanian from Nagornyi Karabakh and those who suffered from the shooting of the White House). We spent a lot on campaigns to defend the former political prisoners of different nations. We helped schoolchildren and students from Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, Mari-El and Mordovia to visit the historical monuments of our ancestors in the city of Bulgar for about 15 years.
The city of BulgarThe Volgian Bulgaria is our first country in the territory of the Volga region and Ural, where in 922 the religion of Islam was embraced.
The Tatar-Bashkir festival Sabantui was organized and sponsored in Russia and its neighboring countries. It is worth saying, that Sabantui was organized for the first time in several regions. Lately, our initiative was seized with the authorities of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. In these latter days Sabantui becomes a very popular festival which is celebrated not only in Russia but all over the world. Sabantui is the world’s national festival of Tatars and Bashkirs, which became a public holiday in Tatarstan, a federal holiday in the Russian Federation and an official state holiday in many countries all over the world. More than that, on the initiative of the several Tatar communities Sabantui is organized in such cities as New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Berlin, Montreal, Toronto, Prague, Istanbul, Riga and many other foreign countries.
At the beginning of every academic year the headquarter of the Tatar Public Centre (TPC) in Naberezhnye Chelny announced the competition «Tatarstan is my native country». The aim of the competition is to bring up respect and love for our native republic. It helps to develop pride with the history and culture of our nation, the greatest achievements of our ancestors and contemporaries. The competition revives the sense of national pride in schoolchildren.
Such important and necessary patriotic senses will appear from the early ages if children study and perceive the most important historical events which took place earlier and nowadays. For a reason, people say «Every nation that forgot its past has no future». It is impossible to build any worthy future if you don’t know the true past history of your nation. Schoolchildren are our future and our hope for better life.
The Tatar Public Centre (TPC) organizes such great Islamic holidays as Uraza-bairam and Kurban-bairam (a holiday of sacrifice).
Aslan Mashadov, the president of the Chechen Republic, with meSanctions and terror of the Tatar public and political organizations by the security agencies.
From 1990 to 2000 a lot of searches were held in the house(Ilichevka, Tukaevskiy district, Tatarstan, Russia) where the Kashapov brothers (Rinat, Nafis, Rafis, Ruzalin) lived and in their shopping centre «Prometei» was situated. Security services shut off gas, electricity and water repeatedly in order to expel the brothers from the house. Numerous meetings were organized with the leaders of the public and political organizations, parties, religious public figures, journalists and foreign diplomats all over the world in the house in Ilichevka. Security services of the Russian Federation tried to limit the Kashapov brothers’ public activity. The Members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Committee for State Security forced their way to the shopping centre «Prometei» illegally four times. More than that, numerous checks, arranged in the shopping centre with the fire, sanitary, internal revenue emergencies, prevented the brothers from working. At the end of 2000, on the initiative of the security agencies, the shopping centre was imposed great penalty, which forced the brothers to close «Prometei».
On the 2nd of July 2000 on the birthday of Rafis and Nafis Kashapovy, the headquarters of TPC was besieged (Address: Novyi gorod, block 17/10) by the fire emergency and Special Police Force. This special-forced raid was organized by three officers of the Federal Security Service of Russia. During this raid 15 militants of the TPC suffered physically and morally.
On the 29th of May 2002 an organized raid to the new headquarter of the TPC (Address: Novyi gorod, block 18/10, the apartment of the wife Nurziya) was arranged by a group of people in black masks. During this raid 6 members of the TPC were beaten terribly. I got 18(eighteen) bone fractures, of which three were on the head, concussion of the brain, head injury. After that I was delivered to the intensive care department in hospital. As a result, Gabdulla Shaisultanov became an in capacitated person of the first group, Rashit Hafizov died and Saniya Vahitova became an disabled person and is still undergoing treatment.
On the 15th of November 2003 I was knocked down with a car in Naberezhnye Chelny, not far from the city hall and got concussion of the brain repeatedly. It is supposed that this was organized with the security services.
On the 25th of March 2003 I was arrested because of the framed-up case on the booklets that TPC printed. I was delivered to the pretrial detention centre and accused according to section number 282 of the Criminal Code. In accordance with the existing legislation I was to be released after a written undertaking not to leave the place. More than that, I was ill and need an intensive cure and peace after head injury. But the authorities showed severe cruelty and continued keeping me under detention. In the cell of the pretrial detention centre number 3 in Bugulma I was kept together with the people who had made an attack on the TPC. I supposed it was a kind of provocation from the people who had fabricated my case and exclusively from the chief of the city hall, the Federal Security Service, Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Public Prosecution Office. Possibly they hoped to provoke a confrontation and wished that I would be killed.
On the 25th of March 2003 numerous searches were made in the apartments of the TPC leaders and my relatives. They were frightened and blackmailed.
The city court in Naberezhnye Chelny declared that I must be delivered to the mental hospital for assessment in Kazan. I knew a lot of cases when healthy people lost their health and legal capacity after that mental hospital. Political prisoners were kept there on the ground of heeling and they were disabled morally, physically and psychologically. That’s why I was absolutely against this decision, more than that, none of my relatives and friends gave their oral or written agreement according to the law. Sergey Kovalev, a deputy of our State Duma and a famous human right activist, asked Kafil Amirov, a public prosecutor of the Republic of Tatarstan, to release me from under guard under his responsibility. On the 26th of May 2003 I was transferred from Bugulma to Kazan and sent to the mental hospital in Kazan. On the 27th of May 2003 I began my hunger strike – complete refusal from water and food. I asked Nail Yanushev, a doctor of the mental hospital to inform my lawyers, Rashid Yagafarov, a chairman of the TPC, and my relatives about my hunger strike. But the doctor said nothing. On the 29th of May 2003 my brother and wife achieved the permission to visit me only because of the public notice of opposition. They saw my severe condition and got to know about my hunger strike during their visit. My wife and twin-brother were shocked as I had severe condition and lost consciousness sometimes. The aim of the Federal Security Service of Russia was to destroy my personality morally and physically and prevented me from continuing my public activity. I was under arrest for 3 months and 8 days. I was released from the pretrial detention centre and the mental hospital owing to the massive protest of human right activists and wide public defense from the countries near and far abroad. Valentin Gefter, a director of the Institute of Human Rights by Moscow-Helsinkian group, came out to the first sitting of the court. He noticed that people with oppositional views fall under pursuits in Russia. As a result the court absolved me and the public prosecution office apologized for groundless prosecution. The doctors from the mental hospital confirmed my positive psychological state. After that I understood that during Vladimir Putin’s government dissatisfied people are expected to be killed, tortured in prison and mental hospital, and those who are dissatisfied will become slaves or go to the government.
On the 2nd of September 2004 the case of the breakup of TPC headquarter in Chelny came on in the court of Nab. Chelny. Many important people were not allowed to attend the court. Among these people were a chairman of the TPC, the members of the board, the activists of the TPC and the reporters from the radio «Azatlyk» (Freedom), the newspapers «Avtocity», «Alabuga Nury», «Chelny Ltd.» and TV channels «Efir» and «STV».
Lately, the media war against TPC was led with the help of mass media. On the 9th of December 2004 during the program on the channel «Efir» the reporter said: «A chairman of nonexistent TPC, Rafis Kashapov». It was declared numerously at the time of the programs on the channels «TNV», «Efir-Kazan», «Tatarstan-Russia» that the headquarter of the TPC was liquidated and the case was closed. But there is a provision in the Constitution of the Russian Federation where it says that the headquarters are not to be liquidated. And there is a provision that when any headquarter is liquidated one can continue working on a voluntary basis according to the regulations of the TPC. We appealed about the liquidation of our headquarter to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and our complain is at the stage of investigation.
On the 14th of October we planned to go to Kazan to celebrate Memorial Day. But at 14.30 my fifteen year old son and I were arrested at the bus station in Nab. Chelny. The officers of Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service of Russia explained the reason of my arrest. They said that a Georgian recidivist thief escaped from a penal institution and I bore resemblance with him. We spent 8 hours in the central headquarters of the Directorate of Internal Affairs. Lately, the members of the Federal Security Service said nothing about the reasons of my arrest. As a result, our trip to Kazan failed. Every year the main events of Memorial Day are held in Kazan. The gathering and funeral meeting begin at 10 o’clock at Freedom Square. After the end of the meeting a demonstration from Freedom Square to the Kremlin takes place. A prayer in honor of our ancestors who sacrificed their lives defending our country is held in Kul Sharif (the mosque which has recently been reconstructed).
The History of Memorial Day. On the 15th of October 1552 the capital city of the Kazan Khanate gave in after 41 days of the heroic defence and violent siege. The Russian Army if Ivan IV that counted 150 thousand soldiers fought against the army of Yediger with 30 thousand soldiers, including the Tatars, the Nogayan, the Udmurts, the Mordovians, the Chuvashes and the Mariyan. During the siege and the storm practically all the city’s defenders were killed. People were fighting for every street and every house. The city of Kazan underwent a complete looting. The conquerors destroyed everything that could be destroyed with terrible vandalism. All the remaining people among which were old people, children and wounded men were killed cruelly according to the order of the Tsar. Women and infants were carried away as slaves. An old city was destroyed. All the libraries, mosques, schools, madrassas were crashed. All the records and works of art burnt down. This day is Memorial Day in honor of the people who died defending the city of Kazan. It is a sorrowful date in the history of the Tatars and every nation, lived in the territory of the Kazan khanate.
15th of October is Memorial Day of the TatarsOn the 6th of February 2007 a protest action against the destruction of the Tatar grammar school took place at 13.00 in Ufa in the Republic of Bashkortostan. The action was organized with the consolidated opposition of Bashkortostan. Mazit Huzin, a chairman of the Council of the Union of the Tatar public organizations in Bashkortostan invited Aidar Halim, Fauziya Bairamova, Talgat Ahmadishin from Nab. Chelny to this action. But at that day at 3.30 the bus driver, who was to take us to Ufa called and informed us that our trip failed because all the wheels of Volkswagen bus had been cut. I went to the bus station to order a taxi but a taxi driver refused to take me. He said that special services looked after the bus station and he would be arrested if he drove us to Ufa.
Over 300 thousand Tatars live in the city of Ufa. By numerous demands, Ramil Bignov, a businessman and a chairman of the coordinating headquarter of opposition, gave his office under construction for a Tatar grammar school. The primary cost of the project was 20 million roubles. Then the authorities of Bashkortostan destroyed the building of the grammar school illegally and deliberately. This act infringed the rights of 1.5 million Tatars living in the Republic. On the 7th of February during the regular meeting of the TPC activists estimated this destruction as the action which returns us to the times of World War II. It was the time when Adolph Hitler destroyed all the educational institutions and cultural centres belonging to the German nation.
On the 7th of April 2008 the security agencies of Russia incriminated and initiated a case against me according to Section 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The section contemplates fomentation of international and interfaith discord. The reason of initiating the case was an illegal and unapproved visit of a member of clergy to maternity home number 1 to asperse new born children in Nab. Chelny. In this maternity home Muslim children were kept. The Muslims took the ceremony for christening, which means aspersion of a thing or a person with water. But the maternity patients didn’t know the structure and quality of the used water. The Muslim community of Nab. Chelny estimated this act as the action of vandalism and sacrilegious attitude to a human personality. On the 24th of April 2009 the court awarded a sentence according to the fact of the announcment named «No Christianization» which appeared on the Internet. On the 26th of January 2008 I was found guilty according to section 282 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (excitement of hatred and enmity) and received a 1 year suspended prison sentence.
Religious institutions stand apart from the government and are equal among the law. But a church official was in the public institution and offended rudely all the Muslim women. More than that, being in nonsterile clothes he disturbed sanitary conditions of the maternity home.
Political pursuit of the members of the Tatars’ Milli Mejlis conference.
On the 4th of January 2009 at 9 o’clock the members of the police and the Federal Security Service of Russia began to search simultaneously the flats of the activists of the national movement, the journalists and human right activists. Among which were Fauziya Bairamova, a chairman of the Tatars’ Milli Mejlis, Faik Taziev, a deputy of Milli Mejlis, Zinnur Agliullin, an ex-charman of the TPC, Damir Shaihetdinov, a chief editor of the newspaper «Chally Yashlare» (The youth of Chelny). On the 20th of December 2008 a number of documents and the appeal about the independence of Tatarstan were adopted in an expanded session of Milli Mejlis. The appeal was based on the Declaration of Sovereignty of Tatarstan dated 30.08.1990 and the results of the referendum, where 61.4% people voted for the sovereignty of Tatarstan. The trial of Fauziya Bairamova, accused of stirring of international enmity ended. She received a 1 year suspended prison sentence.
On the 13th of August 2009 my car was stopped by the members of the Federal Authority for Road Traffic Safety near KamAZ plant. They explained that my car was in the database of the Federal Security Service. They warned that the police would come soon. After they came, Rustam Inamdganov, a senior officer requested the number of the engine. My driver offered to check the number there. But Inamdganov refused saying that he wasn’t a qualified specialist. They took the driver’s license and all the car’s documents. They conducted us to the mechanic station and checked the numbers themselves. Police officers took the car’s number and evacuated the car to a penalty station. So, my new car was arrested though it was in an ideal technical condition. Previously, on the 3d of August 2009 I broke my leg and used crutches while organizing an excursion. Rustam Inamdganov and his colleagues left me on crutches outside the city and went away. The security services tried to beat me morally and physically. They took away my car and prevented me from organizing the excursion. In spite of all the problems the excursion on 2 buses to Ish-Bubi, a historical Muslim centre of Tatarstan in Agryz, took place. About 90 people (schoolchildren, students, journalists, public persons, writers, senior people) from Nab. Chelny and delegations from nearby cities and districts took part in the trip.
On the 30th of April 2011 the meeting organized by the parents of Russian-speaking children was held in Victory Park in Nab. Chelny. The parents demanded equal opportunities in learning the Russian language as in many other districts of the Russian Federation. Zinnur Agliullin, a Tatar prisoner of conscience, together with his teammates visited this meeting with their banners in support of the Tatar language as well. At the present time there is a trial of 60 year old Zinnur Agliullin. He is accused according to Section 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (excitement of hatred or enmity as well as abasement of human dignity). According to the investigation he offended publicly several Russian-speaking people and humbled them by racial mark. By that time 175 Tatar schools and grammar schools had been closed in Tatarstan and more than 700 schools all over Russia. Previously, the Tatars were prevented from writing in the Latin alphabet and opening the Tatar University. Several independent mass media were closed. After the meeting the TPC and the Union of the Tatar Youth «Azatlyk» sent a letter to the United Nations secretary-general Pan Gi Mun. The letter was sent in support of Nadir Bekirov, a president of the Fund of Researches and Support of indigenuous people of the Crimea. It is explained in detail about the situation of genesis of indigenuous people in Russia.
Special-order criminal cases, assaults and beating were directed not only to me.
Marat Mulyukov, a first chairman of Kazan TPC, and Gayal Murtazin, one of the leaders of the TPC, as well as Shakirzyan Zalyaev, a chairman of the TPC in Aznakaevo and Halil Ayupov, a chairman of the TPC in Nizhnekamsk were beaten and harmed seriously. In 1999 the car with Fauziya Bairamova and Gabdulla hazrat Galiullin was involved in a specially provoked accident. Bairamova broke her arm and spine. Aidar Halim, a chairman of Milli Medjlis and a publicist, was beaten with a group of unknown people in black masks in Bashkortostan. He received fractured ribs and was admitted to hospital. On the 24th of June 2011 security services of Russia arrested Nail Nabiullin, a chairman of the Union of the Tatar Youth «Azatlyk», near his home in Kazan early in the morning. They fabricated the case and he was put to prison for 3 days. My twin brother Nafis Kashapov, was forced to go to the Ukraine as he couldn’t bear the pressure of the special services of Russia. He lives there for seven years. He takes part in the meetings of the Crimean Tatars and the Ukrainians and waits for the decision of the American Congress about his political asylum. By the way, with the regime of Putin more and more people began to move away abroad. All these facts show (an organized and systematic nature of these assaults) that security agencies organize systematic assaults on the members of the opposition movement. In spite of the most dreadful pressure the Tatar public and political organizations continue their struggle for the Tatars’ rights, opening the National University, using the Latin alphabet, taking the Tatar language for a national language, mounting the monument for the defenders of Kazan in 1552, for mass media freedom and publishing books.
The place, where the memorial to Kazan defenders in 1552 must be mounted52 year old Sergey Nazarov has recently been sent to hospital with disruption of straight intestine. Before he died, he said that the policemen raped him with a bottle of champaigne in the police district «Dalnyi». The Russian authorities began their examinations when this case made a fuss in mass media. I want to attract attention of all the people who are not indifferent to the Muslims’ fate (especially in Bashkortostan and the Caucasus) to the cruel actions of security services and police.
Last year Fanzil Ahmetshin, a vice chairman of the executive committee of the Bashkirs’ Worldwide Kurultai (union), a chairman of the Youth Council of this organization and a participant of the benefit «Children of Somali», was arrested in Ufa according to the fabricated case.
According to the numerous reports and statements practicing Muslims of Bashkortostan are tortured and threatened with physical rape in the departments named the Federal Security Service of Russia. They are beaten severely till spontaneous defecation. Policemen fill the mouths with green bacon, burn Muslims’ beards, tear the pages of the Koran and promise to throw them to lavatory. Immobilized people are beaten with sticks, bottles and shoes by a person or with a group of people. It is hard to enumerate all kinds of refined tortures. The so-called reason for this cruel brutality of executioners: as if they have found drugs or weapon. And we call it stability.
Every nation has the right for democratic formation where people live in spite of the difference of race, gender, religion and color of skin. The formation which can provide abidance of human rights and fundamental democratic liberty for everyone. We continue to fight against fascism and racialism in spite of all the difficulties. We hope we will succeed, Inshallah. We want our public and political activity to be highlighted and not to be intersected with the power of Putin. I want every child to know his language, history, culture and religion.
Our organization is in information blockade for many years, but we need financial help to organize and conduct public actions and activity. We ask all the non-indifferent people support our activity and send the information about our problems to mass media.
Rafis Kashapov, a chairman of the TPC headquarter in Nab. Chelny
Tatarstan, Naberezhnye Chelny
Cell phone number: 8 906 330 47 73
e-mail: tatar_center@yahoo.com
Adress:
Kashapov Rafis Rafailovich
ZIP 423832, 216 apt., 52/41 house, Druzhby Narodov avenue,
Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan, Russia
Visa electron card number: 4276 8620 1210 9247
MasterCard number: 5331 5728 2584 1056 (Ilyuza95@inbox.ru)
PUBLICATION INFORMATION TATAR PUBLIC CENTER
INFORMATION IN RUSSIAN: http://tatar-centr.blogspot.com/2012/03/blog-post_18.html
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