Council of Ministers of Crimea Registers Communities in Opposition to Crimean Muftiate
The Council of Ministers of the Crimea registered the statutes of four religious organizations of the Spiritual Center of Muslims of Crimea at once. The resolution in this regard was passed on 14 October.
According to crimeantatars.org, the Council of Ministers registered the statutes of religious communities Yany Khaiat (Village of Tymoshenko), Akikat Elu (Village of Partyzanske), Jemaati (Alushta) and Jemat (Village of Vorobiove).
According to the resolution, the Ministry of Culture of the Crimea is to inform the communities about the decision and instruct them on the regulations regarding the activity of religious communities, to inform respective executive authorities about the registration and make appropriate alterations to the register of religious communities of the Crimea.
It is known that the Spiritual Center of Muslims of Crimea (SCMC) (headed by Rydvan Veliev) is under the jurisdiction of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of Ukraine (SBMU) headed by Sheikh Akhmed Tamim. There has been a conflict between the two bodies for the right of influencing the Crimean Muslims.
In February, 2011, two months after the registration of SCMC, the existing spiritual center of the Crimean Muslims considered the establishment of the alternative Muftiate as an attempt to create “another center of tension and destabilization in the Crimea and Ukraine.”
“The establishment of an alternative Muftiate in the Crimea is an attempt to introduce by force in the area of spiritual government of the life of Muslims of the Crimea an alien and aggressive ideology of habashism based on methods of division of the Muslim society into opposing factions,” said the address of SBMC to the authorities at that time.
