According to a report, law enforcement officers first put the men coming out of the mosque on a bus under the pretext of checking their documents. However, after several hours of waiting, they were taken to the military enlistment office in Lyubertsy.
Seems like the same old policies, just assembled in a novel way. Attacking religious minorities, using them as cannon fodder, etc.
It’s just weird this escalation happened in previously not-so-opressed Moscow (or I didn’t hear about something like that), used riot cops, packed the mosque goers. There were established channels to do it otherwise but now someone went out of their way to pick new recruits. It’s weird.
And as I was suspecting Moscow’s admin initially, I think it’s to fill the quota per city in a hurry, to show one’s loyalty to the throne. Muslims were targeted not out of hate, but because, in some chekist’s mind, they are those the core russian audience doesn’t care enough to oppose such tactic, causing less political damage (as questions about mobilization are still dodged by authorities). Someone there felt that the numbers are too low, they involved local cops to up them, local cops thought it’s a good idea to silently farm muslim communities and do it like a shopping spree.
At least, in corrupt verticals of power I encountered before, it worked like that.
Doesn’t Moscow have a lot of mostly Muslim immigrants from Central Asia? I’m guessing they might have been targeted as they wouldn’t have many relatives in Russia to file complaints.
Anyway, giving weapons to people who now hate you is probably not a bright idea.
Formally, they still need a registration and an internal russian passport, and hunting them down upsets the local building business, one of the kings here which has a lot of money and influence to make police underlook foreigners working there full-time without papers. News were about harvesting men from places like Buryatia where all are legal minorities, not immigrants. Although the law has been passed about a fast naturalization, I haven’t heard how it was applied. It’s just… tapping into populated cities is what they were avoiding, because there’s a bigger potential to cause problems, especially near the kremlin.
Yeah. Especially thouse who visit services and participate in their religious community. That what leads me to believe it’s an idea of a lower level management put before arbitrary goals.