Mr.Tanay Cholkhanov, who appeared in Crimea after the “Referendun” in March and and at once proclaimed himself a “Crimean Tatar public and religious figure” intended to create a battle squad in Luhank, as reported by “InterFax” Agency with likns to Mr.Cholkhanov himself.
According to the newly-minted “Crimean Tatar public figure”, he stayed in Luhansk for a week “...in order to understand the situation, so that I could create a battle squad for military correspondence, who would film undercover at the frontline and use the cameras as the gunmen use their guns” — said Mr.Cholkhanov in his interview for “InterFax-Religion”. He also mention that the squad was already created de-facto.
It bears reminding that it Mr.Cholkhanov, along with the Spiritual Centre of Muslism of Crimea and Russian islamophobe Mr.Roman Silantiev, took every opportunity to discredit the RAMC and its Mufti Mr.Amirali Ablaev during this spring and summer. Now this”religious figure” also calls himself the representative of the Tavrian Muftiate, a structure merged into the above-mentioned SCMC as a counter to RAMC. Followers of the Tavrian Muftiate arranged a raider attack and forcible takeover of the Eupatoria Juma-Jami.
According to “InterFax”, Mr.Cholkhanow is now in Crimea where he goes through rehabilitation after an injury in Luhansk in mid-August. He aims to return to Ukraine in the nearest future and re-join the illegal armed troops.
“People are waiting for me there already, we prepared everything. I will have a squad there, I have a good military experience. Our task is to bring people who know both how to fight and how to film to the frontline. We’ll distribute our filmings in the Media,” — the “InterFax” quotes.
It remains a big question who is in the squad and how their actions will help restore the Crimean Tatars’ public and religious activities. There’s another interesting thing: a military squad is created under the guidance of a Muslim religious institution — for the first time in Crimea. The tasks and functions of Mr.Cholkhanov’s squad remain under question.
The Tavrian Muftiate already showed how they can do forced takeovers of some other religious organisation’s property even without having a military support. With a squad, they can develop this field of their activity. The Crimean Khabashis, of course, can disavow their newly-found supporter and say that he is acting on his own initiative, — yet we don’t have such a statement at the moment. Perhaps the new “Tavrian Mufti” Mr.Ruslan Saitvaliev is too busy with other things, more serious for him than the constantly discredited image of Islam as the religion of peace by his “religious figure” Mr.Cholkhanov
by Dilyaver Saidakhmetov
