Lib rag Daily Beast frets:
Residents of Dagestan say that Russian forces destroyed their homes and trashed Korans during anti-terror raids last fall.
On Nelli Radzhabova’s desk, a pile of materials was growing: hand-written accounts, complaints to local and federal authorities, flash drives with videos and photographs. Dozens of letters. All of it evidence of the destruction caused by a recent counter-terrorism operation led by Russian interior ministry forces in Vremenny, a village in the troubled North Caucasus republic of Dagestan. The images in Radzhabova’s files depicted demolished homes; furniture, clothes and other belongings turned to rubbish and partly buried by bulldozers; broken windows, walls and gates at the village school and clinic. In one of the videos, men in interior ministry forces uniforms are seen throwing people’s belongings down a hillside.
There were also photographs of a Koran cut down the middle by an ax, as well as swastikas and other humiliating signs painted over the village’s ruined walls—all done by the military, or so locals claimed. One line of graffiti said: “Moscow is the force.”
“Local policemen asked Russian soldiers not to attack our Koran, so a military commander called Moscow to complain that Dagestan cops were not letting them do their job. After that, our local policemen were called away from Vremenny,” said resident Aminat Magomedova in an interview with The Daily Beast. “Two days ago, a local man found two more Korans in a pile of garbage,” she added.