Moscow: Mayor against public sacrifice

Moscow: Mayor against public sacrifice



Via RT:

Recently-appointed Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has called for an end to “bloody and provocative displays” of animal sacrifice to commemorate the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Adha.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of sheep are slaughtered during one of the most important celebrations in Islam. Although Moscow officially banned these sacrifices from public places in 2006, this year the Russian media has published hundreds of photographs of dead animals being killed, and sometimes left to rot on the streets.

“I think that neither the Muslim clergy, nor the Muslims themselves want the current situation to continue. I think this is simply a matter of better organization,” said the Moscow mayor on Sunday.

Last week some of Russia’s best-known actors and musicians signed a petition saying that the sacrifices “cannot do anything but shock those not used to cruelty,” and said that such scenes are “alien to Russian culture.”

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Russia: "People who contrast Christianity with Islam seek to divide Russia"

Russia: ""People who contrast Christianity with Islam seek to divide Russia"

Via RT:

About 14.5 per cent of the people in Russia are Muslim. As the country's Muslim community celebrates Kurban Bairam, St. Petersburg researcher Aleksandr Sotnichenko describes what the foundations were upon which Russia’s peculiar culture grew up on.

­Being a Christian, he shows where the Western model of inter-faith interaction may take Russia and what will result from calls for ethnic and religious purity.

Aleksandr Sotnichenko is a historian, a political analyst and an expert on religion. He is an analyst at the St. Petersburg Center for Middle East Studies and professor at the International Affairs Department of St. Petersburg University.

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