Religious scholars claim law violations by Sharia patrols in KBR

For violating the norms of the Sharia Law, offenders should respond before the Sharia Court; and the patrols that use threats and beatings against violators are doing arbitrariness. This was stated by religious scholars after the detention of Sharia patrols in the city of Tyrnyauz.

Sources have reported detention of the Tyrnyauz residents suspected of participating in "Sharia patrols" and beating residents of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic (KBR).

The Sharia Law does not prescribe threatening and beating violators of behaviour norms, Leonid Syukiyainen, an expert in the comparative and Islamic law, has stated.

"There can be no arbitrariness. No one can independently evaluate a Muslim's behaviour of and decide that he lives wrong," the expert has noted, adding that no group of people can create a body that regulates Muslims' behaviour and defines punishments for violations.

Such Sharia patrols are compromising the Sharia Law, Dmitry Mikulsky, an Orientalist, is sure.

"The Sharia Law is the legal culture in Islam, and what these patrols are doing is savagery. In ordinary people's eyes, Islam thus becomes something dangerous," he has noted.

In the opinion of Zaur Shokuev, a human rights defender, the actions of "Sharia patrols" are violating people's rights. According to his version, it's inappropriate to draw links with the past by comparing young people's actions with local customs. Shokuev has admitted that the young men didn't fully understand the consequences of their actions.