Moscow Gazeta in Russian 23 Jul 03 P 4

By Nadezhda Kevorkova

"Irrespective of Status and Age"

Operation 'Fatima' Is Mounted in Moscow

It is no longer enough for a female Muslim believer to show her passport with residence permit or registration to a policeman. The Internal Affairs Ministry [MVD] has issued orders within the framework of the "Fatima" special operation for anyone wearing Muslim dress, especially women in headscarves, to be subjected to checks.

Nora Ashirova, wife of the North Caucasus mufti, mother of three, and graduate of the Sorbonne [university in Paris], was stopped 17 July at the Rimskaya subway station by an officer of the local police department, Mikhail Avilkin.  According to her, presenting her passport with a Moscow residence permit and certification of her status as a mother of several children, proved to be insufficient.  The policeman, she told Gazeta, singled her out from the crowd, saying that she had a "certain appearance," and asked her to accompany him to the precinct.  There, to her surprise, he "did not check her against any photographs or photofits," but copied down details from her passport, filled out a form, and began to make phone calls to obtain information on the detained woman.  "I suggested that he call our local precinct but he seemed not to be listening, and also did not say who he was phoning, though in law I have a right to know who details from my passport are being passed on to," Ashirova told Gazeta.  She demanded to be shown the directive on the basis of which she was detained and subjected to a check, despite the fact
that her papers were in order.  The policeman told her about a "special operation to expose shahids [suicide bombers]," refused to show her the order, but agreed to read it out "slowly and clearly."  The document says, Ashirova claims, that on the basis of Internal Affairs Ministry Order No. 12/309 of 9 July 2003 (issued four days after the terrorist act in Tushino -- Gazeta), the police are directed to check all women in headdresses and female Muslims wearing headscarves, which are the mark of a potential terrorist.  According to Ashirova, the policeman explained the necessity of the form filling in the following manner:  "You came here and I must fill one out."  The wives and sisters of prominent Muslims confirmed to Gazeta that Muslim women are being stopped in Moscow up to 10 times a day. 
For example, Patimat Gamzatova, a scholar specializing in art history and daughter of the poet Rasul Gamzatov, asserted to Gazeta that the "campaign is gathering momentum and affecting Muslim women irrespective of their status and age."  "I am protected by my academic position and name but others are being subjected to
humiliating and sometimes downright offensive checks," she said.  Leyla Khusyainova, presenter of the "Voice of Islam" program on the Rossiya radio station shared her impressions with Gazeta:  "They either say 'go and light a candle, mother' [Christian custom] or 'take your headscarf off if you don't want trouble.'"  In
Bashkortostan, after several Muslim women were stopped and checked over and over again, they inquired as to the reasons for such attention being focused on women in headscarves.  One of them said to Gazeta they were told directly that "there is an operation being conducted all over Russia to expose female terrorists, called
operation 'Fatima.'"

It was confirmed to Gazeta at the MVD Main Administration for the Protection of Public Order that the "operation was being conducted nationwide and you do not need to know anything else."

Interestingly enough, Gazeta was told that the MVD and Moscow Internal Affairs Main Administration press services "have not yet been informed" about Instruction 12/309.  Meantime, information about the operation has gone round the regional media organs in closed cities, Arkhangelsk, Saratov, and Yakutia.  And the Karachayevo-Cherkessian MVD minister, Major General Aleksey Lapin, reported at a press conference that "we have carried out an operation,
codenamed 'Fatima,' together with the Federal Security Service.  The purpose of the operation is to expose potential female terrorists.  Previously, there were suggestions that there are 'Fatimas' in our republic capable of committing acts like the Tushino terrorist acts.  Such women have already been found and we are watching them very carefully."

Mufti of Siberia Nafigulla Ashirov reminded Gazeta that "those who blew themselves up at the Tushino festival were not covered up and wearing headscarves, so why don't they check everyone wearing a miniskirt; why do the police seize godfearing women encumbered with children, round up and search Muslims whose only sin is their faith?"

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