Russia: Muslim prisoners lament challenges in practicing their faith

Image: Jihad Watch

After arriving at a freezing Siberian prison in November 2023, Nariman Dzhelyal survived on nothing but bread and gruel.

A bespectacled, bearded leader of the Crimean Tatar community and a devout Muslim, Dzhelyal found that most of the meals provided contained pork—prohibited in Islam.

“I just took bread, though it was of poor quality, and ate it with tea,” said Dzhelyal, who was sentenced to 17 years in prison for allegedly “blowing up a natural gas pipeline” and “smuggling explosives” in what Ukraine described as a Kremlin-orchestrated trial. He has denied all charges against him.

Days after his arrival in the bleak town of Minusinsk, his diet improved slightly. Breakfasts consisted of bland, unsweetened gruel, dinners included fish, and only one lunch dish contained pork.

However, diet is far from the biggest concern for the tens of thousands of Muslims incarcerated in Russia’s notoriously harsh prison system.

For nearly a century, Soviet and Russian prisons have been described as a shadowy underworld ruled by unwritten laws.

Hardened criminals, known as “crowned thieves” or “the black caste,” still bear intricate tattoos, speak in a distinct slang, and uphold a brutal hierarchy with themselves at the top.

The prisons under their control, known as “black prisons,” operate with warden complicity, allowing drug smuggling, gambling, and extreme violence to persist unchecked.

Conversely, “red prisons” are dominated by wardens, where career criminals accuse officials of imposing inhumane conditions, including torture, solitary confinement, malnutrition, and sexual violence.

Over the past two decades, however, a third force has emerged within Russia’s prison system, as tens of thousands of Muslims have been convicted of “terrorism,” “extremism,” and other charges.

(This Article was originally published by Jihad Watch)