DUSHANBE, May 31, Asia-Plus – Religious safety of migrants was one of major topics of an international seminar formally titled “Labor Migration from Central Asia and Migration Police of the Russian Federation in the Urals Region” that was held in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg recently, Islam.ru reported today.
Representatives from the governments and public associations of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia discussed ways of seeking solution to numerous problems facing labor migrants.
The seminar along with problems of drug trafficking, violation by guest workers of Russian labor and migration laws also discussed issues related to religious safety of migrants from Central Asia.
Telling the seminar, Gavhar Jurayeva, chairperson of the Moscow-based Public Association Tajikistan, noted that migrants “are an ideal audience for propagation of radical ideas among them.” “During the civil war in Tajikistan, some 200,000 people fled the country seeking refuge in Afghanistan,” said Jurayeva, “In Afghanistan, they were faced with new form of Islam. Some of them adopted these ideas and through them these ideas began to spread in the territory of the post-Soviet area.”
According to imams of mosques in the Urals region, Tajik, Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationals are notable for their grater religious literacy than Tatars and Bashkirs.
Farrukh Mirzoyev, the head of Yekaterinburg Tajik Culture Center Somon, noted that immigrants from Central Asia make a notable part of parishioners of mosques in the Urals region. Many of them serve as imams or teachers with maktabs (local religious schools). Local special services have closely kept up with them suspecting them of propagating radical Islam.
