The Investigative Committee opened a case over a migrant prayer house in a Moscow high-rise building

TFR in Moscow excited criminal case under Art. 322.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of illegal migration) due to a chapel organized by migrants in a high-rise building. The investigation of the case has been placed under control in the central office of the department.

The Investigative Committee refers to media information according to which migrants have organized a “house of prayer” in one of the high-rise buildings, which has been operating for three years. It is alleged that because of this, the parking lot and the passage of local residents into the yard are blocked, and “tenants are forced to live in oppression, and women are afraid to leave their apartments.”

There are no reports of any arrests. The head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed the acting the head of the Moscow Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee, Vitaly Saksin, to report on the progress of the investigation of the case and the “initially established circumstances.”

The ICR does not specify in which area of ​​Moscow this prayer house was organized. This summer, representatives of the Muslim community of Kotelniki near Moscow (in the southeast of Moscow) turned to President Vladimir Putin with a request to protect them from the actions of security forces: riot police officers burst into the local Muslim center. They behaved rudely and did not allow me to complete the prayer, told “Kommersant” head of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Moscow Region, Mufti Rushan Abbyasov. In August, Mr. Bastrykin requested report on migrant crimes in the Lyubertsy region, where Kotelniki is located. Local residents, according to the Investigative Committee, reported cases of rape, attacks on children, and organized drug trafficking.

The Prosecutor General’s Office reported that by the end of 2022 was tagged an increase in the crime rate among migrants by 10%; the largest increase in the number of such cases was recorded in the Urals – 465%. Number of migrants deported from the country increased 2.5 times. Head of the Human Rights Council Valery Fadeev called for establish quotas for migrant workers.

Laura Keffer