Kadyrov bribing parents to name their sons Muhammad

The pro-Russian president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has announced that boys born tonight will receive 50,000 rubles (C$ 1,796 / US$ 1,398) from the Akhmad Kadyrov Fund, as a way to mark the Prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) birthday. In exchange, Kadyrov said he would "ask" the boys' parents to name their newborn sons Muhammad.

Kadyrov is also planning to distribute 5,000 rubles each to 10,000 poor Chechens. Furthermore, the Prophet's (pbuh) birthday is being marked with the distribution of flour and sugar to the poor, along with special prayers and fireworks in major Chechen cities (Белорусские новости).

What can I say? It's somewhat pathetic when a dictator as brutal as Kadyrov starts playing the religion card. Kadyrov can't even distribute charity without interfering in as personal a decision as naming one's child. I don't think he's fooling anyone, though, neither with his construction of the largest mosque in Europe, nor with his latest gimmick.

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Russian neo-Nazi beheading video appears to be genuine

According to Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Investigation Committee of the Russian federal prosecution office, a video showing the murder of two men by Russian neo-Nazis is not fake, as was previously claimed (Газета.ru).

The video, which first appeared on a blog run by a neo-Nazi called Viktor Mil'kov on 12 August 2007, showed a Tajik and a Dagestani being executed by neo-Nazis in a forest. Prior to the execution, one of the victims is heard saying "We were arrested by Russian national socialists." Two men in camouflage then give Nazi salutes, and murder the victims, one by decapitation and the other by shooting.

The family of a Dagestani man named Shamil Udamanov, who has been missing since August 2007, is claiming that the Dagestani shown being executed in the video is none other than Udamanov. The Russian prosecution started examining the case in earnest after Shamil's father Artur Udamanov wrote a letter to ex-President Vladimir Putin asking him to intervene.

The case is currently under investigation by the Russian Interior Ministry and German police.

Meanwhile, Mil'kov is serving a one-year prison sentence for initiating the distribution of the video on the Internet.

A previously unknown group which calls itself the Combat Brigade of the National-Socialist Party of Rus took responsibility for the execution in August 2007. In a statement sent to a Chechen separatist website, the group declared "armed war against black colonists" and "bureaucrats of the Russian Federation" who help non-ethnic-Russian immigrants. The terrorist group promised to "deport all Caucasians and Asians from the territory of Rus" (Rus being a medieval state whose successors today are Belarus, Russia and Ukraine).

The whole thing is thoroughly sickening. I wonder what the German connection is.

26,000 Russian pilgrims go on Hajj

A record 26,000 pilgrims from Russia have gone on Hajj this year, after Saudi Arabia raised Russia's quota from 20,000. Chechnya alone accounts for 3,000 pilgrims.

Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov, head of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Russia, observed that

This year, because of religious consciousness, the end of violence in the North Caucasus and in Chechnya in particular and the current growth of people's well-being, people can just allow themselves to do this.

Russia currently has 4,000 mosques, up from the 90 it had at the end of the Soviet era, and Islam is undergoing something of a revival there.

Rushan Abbyasov, director of international relations for the Russian Council of Muftis, observed that Hajjis from other parts of the world are still getting used to the presence of Russian pilgrims. According to him, "A good many people are surprised that there are Muslims in Russia" (International Herald Tribune).