Interfax-religion. "Interfax-religion": c. Naumkin “the current approach to compiling a federal list of extremist materials can harm interreligious relations”

I remember with pleasure how in 2004, through our joint efforts with the support of the Interreligious Council of Russia, the Interfax-Religion portal was created, which became one of the largest information resources dedicated to news and analytics in the religious sphere. During this time, it has become a reliable reference for those who are looking for truthful information about events in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church and other traditional communities.

"Interfax-Religion" - a reliable source of facts and objective commentary.

I cannot help but note the excellent work of the Interfax-Religion news service, which over the years of its existence has become one of the world’s most authoritative sources of information about the life of believers in Russia, including about our community. Your work is very much needed by people in Russia and abroad. You fulfill your journalistic duty at the highest professional level.

Your outreach ministry keeps millions of people informed. On behalf of the multi-representative flock of the Central Spiritual Spiritual Society of Russia, we congratulate Interfax news agency on its 25th anniversary and Interfax-Religion on its 10th anniversary of professional activity, and also sincerely thank you for the timely coverage of news, in particular, the work of the Central Spiritual Spiritual Directorate of Russia.

Critical

The Interfax-Religion website has a biased attitude towards Islam and in many cases false information. It often happened that the information presented on this site was not 100 percent true. What kind of coverage of events in the Muslim community are they talking about? No this. When non-specialists get down to business, and especially in the media, they get one-sided or unreliable information. I believe this is unprofessional, people are incompetent in many matters of religion, especially when it comes to Islam.

I am not inclined to exaggerate the scale of Islamophobia, but the fact that this site is oversaturated with negative information about a certain kind of Islamic movements, squabbles, etc., certainly creates a negative image of the Muslim community. To put an end to this, it is necessary to create a powerful information curtain and publish more positive materials.

In July 2007, Rosregistration for the first time published a list of prohibited extremist literature, which is updated and periodically published in the media. A large proportion of the material in it is Islamic literature. Some time ago, a discussion broke out on the question of how justified it is to include a particular book on the “black list”. Many speak in favor of creating a special expert council to assess the presence of extremism in literature, which would include both secular and religious figures.

Why is it necessary to change the situation in this area? Are the statements of individual representatives of the Islamic Ummah about the oppression of Muslims in Russia justified? What is the state of Islamic studies in the country today and what changes has this science undergone recently? What is the situation in the field of Islamic media? Vitaly Naumkin, head of the Center for Arabic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, shared his opinion on these issues in an interview with Interfax-Religion.

– Vitaly Vyacheslavovich, how do you feel about the controversy surrounding the Federal List of Extremist Materials? Do you share the concerns of Muslim leaders about the illegality of the criteria for including Islamic literature in it?

– This is a very subtle sphere. Any prohibition is a double-edged sword, which can hit the one who swings it, especially if ineptly. By the way, this can create advertising for precisely those works that are prohibited, and stir up additional interest in them. We remember how we read the literature of the so-called “Samizdat” in the Soviet Union.

Literature that calls for murder, violence, and ethnic hatred must definitely be eradicated. Of course, we should not publish books by bin Laden or Hitler. But it is very difficult to fight against ideas. A very balanced and competent approach is needed here. I don’t want to once again blame regional officials, but the case in the Penza region with the ban on Ayatollah Khomeini’s book is indicative. The employees simply carried out their instructions, guided by expert assessments made on the basis of some old directives. But Russia is striving to develop relations with Iran, and at the same time it bans the works of the founder of the modern Iranian state! No country, not even the United States, which does not recognize the current regime in Iran and has no diplomatic relations with this country, has banned this book!

I believe that the ban on Said Nursi’s books was also inadequate. These books themselves do not contain any extremism or calls for something bad or illegal. A completely different question is whether the state should allow the activities of some groups or associations of Nursi supporters. There's a lot to think about here. But, I repeat, it was, in my opinion, wrong to ban the works themselves.

This raises the question: who makes the ban? In my opinion, issuing a ban on the distribution of this or that literature should not be within the competence of district authorities or courts, which make decisions based on the recommendations of insufficiently qualified experts. This could be within the competence of a special body, which should include scientists, religious and public figures, and officials. They must, based on careful analysis, reach a conclusion regarding a particular publication, which would be taken into account when making the final decision. The situation that has developed today in this area, unfortunately, can harm interreligious relations.

– How do you assess the statements of some Islamic figures, in particular, Mufti Nafigulla Ashirov and Heydar Dzhemal and their supporters, who believe that the Russian state oppresses Muslims and periodically issue ultimatums to the authorities?

“I regret that such an authoritative figure as Nafigulla Ashirov thinks so.” And ultimatums harm Muslims themselves. Russia is a multinational and multi-confessional state. Everyone who makes these statements must understand that it is dominated by the Russian Orthodox population, and the state is obliged to ensure the interests of this majority. Of course, equally as the Muslim minority, the indigenous population of Russia. But right now you can come to any subject of the Russian Federation and see mosques, a mass of believers who have the opportunity to go on Hajj. Russian Islamic studies are experiencing a period of prosperity, Islamic educational institutions are opening, Islamic media are developing, the state is allocating funding, and Muslim communities of believers are being supported. And we know firsthand how the infringement of believers can happen.

Speaking about the alleged oppression of Muslims can harm interreligious dialogue in our country. This does not meet the interests of Muslims themselves. Therefore, when speaking on this topic, you must be aware of your responsibility. At the same time, the leaders of the Muslim Ummah are naturally right when they resolutely oppose individual facts of Islamophobia and defend the rights of any member of the community.

– What is the state of domestic Islamic studies today?

– Russian Oriental and Islamic studies have glorious traditions and significant intellectual potential. It is domestic Islamic studies that have always traditionally differed from foreign ones in that it has never had the one-sided, Eurocentric approach characteristic of Western studies when covering issues related to Islam. At the same time, it was an organic part of our multinational and multi-confessional society. The strengths of our scientists have always been working with primary sources and powerful language training.

These traditions did not die even during the times of state atheism and the dominance of communist ideology. Oriental studies and Islamic studies managed to maintain their potential and survive, despite repression and accusations of “insufficient Marxism” against a whole galaxy of scientists (as was done, for example, with Krachkovsky).

As for the situation in post-Soviet Russia, as a result of reforms, changes also occurred in domestic Islamic studies. People got the opportunity to travel around the world, there is no longer a state ideology of atheism, the number of universities where relevant disciplines began to be taught has increased. On the other hand, the 1990s became a period of a certain decline in Islamic studies and publishing activities.

But on the whole, the traditions were preserved. And now we are witnessing the flourishing of domestic science, in particular, Islamic studies and Oriental studies. This is largely facilitated by the activities of the Foundation for the Support of Islamic Culture, Science and Education, which provides significant assistance to the study of Islamic culture. One can only regret that such steps aimed at supporting Islamic culture and the study of Islam were taken by the state only recently. Therefore, it is now necessary to develop book publishing activities and stimulate research in this area. In general, we can say that Russian Islamic studies are now flourishing. Our researchers work with primary sources in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian, that is, a language school is also developing.

There is one more nuance. Current Islamic studies are becoming more “Muslim” - more and more representatives of the Russian Muslim ummah are appearing in it. I would like to note that now there is a demand for both “secular” and “religious” Islamic studies. Qualified non-Muslim researchers have the opportunity to convey objective information about Islam to representatives of other religions in our country, while Muslim authors and theologians can qualitatively cover current issues of theory and practice for followers of Islam. The combination of these two directions, which has emerged in recent years, is a normal process and another strong point of Russian Islamic studies.

– How would you assess the quality of modern Islamic media in Russia, primarily online publications?

– In my opinion, modern Islamic Internet resources reflect the pluralism of opinions that exist in the Russian Muslim environment. After all, if, for example, the same Heydar Dzhemal has the opportunity to freely express his thoughts via the Internet, isn’t this the best proof that not everything is so bad with the rights of Muslims in our country! Therefore, the authors of such sites need to understand that they should avoid extremes, everything that will not contribute to the improvement of interreligious relations in Russia.

In general, work in the Islamic information space needs stimulation, including in scientific terms. I note that the question is even broader: better coverage of topics related to Islam is needed. This is why new translations of the Holy Quran and good religious and research literature are needed. A large Islamic encyclopedia is extremely relevant, which will be in demand not only by Muslims themselves, but also by the entire Russian society. It is also necessary to intensify work to promote a tolerant, moderate interpretation of religious doctrine, which forms the core of the rich cultural and religious heritage of the Russian Ummah.

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- Valentina Vyacheslavovna, tell us how the idea of ​​creating a religious portal under the auspices of the Interfax news agency came about?

Such an idea had been in the air for a long time, but many did not believe that it could be brought to life. For a long time, it was generally accepted that religious news was a rather narrow area of ​​little interest to the general reader, which was relegated to a place on the periphery of general political or cultural news. Of course, leading news agencies, newspapers and magazines attracted journalists specializing in this topic, however, with the exception of the successful initiative of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, they made no attempts to highlight it as an independent direction.

Meanwhile, according to surveys, a religious worldview is inherent in the majority of Russians; this is not at all the lot of a marginal group of “obscurantists,” whose opinion can be safely ignored. Russian citizens want to receive objective and timely information about religion, and this desire must be satisfied. The Interfax agency fully realized this and decided to launch a special Interfax-Religion portal.

The first months of operation of the Interfax-Religion portal showed that the most optimistic forecasts came true. Now its counter registers up to 50 thousand requests and up to 10 thousand visitors per day with an average number of updates of 35 materials, which, in our opinion, is a very good indicator even for a general political news resource. It became noticeable that the print media, based on our news, began to write more positive articles about religion. The Interfax-Religion portal is the first division of Interfax to provide completely open access to both real-time news and their archive over the past 15 years.

By the time the Interfax-Religion portal was launched, several information and analytical sites specializing in religious topics already existed on the RuNet. What are the fundamental differences between your portal?

- Interfax-Religion, being a division of the largest Russian news agency, by definition sets a higher bar for work. Its total audience (including subscribers to the main Interfax feed) reaches up to 30 thousand people daily, of which two thirds belong to the political, business, cultural and media elite of the CIS and many foreign countries.

Thus, the audience of our resource significantly exceeds the total audience of all similar sites, the largest of which is visited by no more than one and a half thousand people a day. At the same time, the entire target group of consumers of religious news on the RuNet can be estimated at 5-10 thousand people, so the majority of our readers constitute a fundamentally new contingent that is just discovering this interesting information sphere. That is why we try to put our news in a form that is as accessible as possible to a non-specialist, and we explain many terms and concepts. A large share of primary news and our own translations from English allows us to work in the most efficient mode. We should not forget that the Religion portal can use the entire extensive correspondent network of Interfax and attract additional stringers.

The work of already existing agencies and portals on religious topics - “Blagovest-info”, “Pravoslavie.ru”, “Jevish.ru” and some others, of course, deserves the highest praise, but it fully covers only the target group. If Interfax manages to expand this group, then religious information and analytical resources will only benefit from this. In general, we tend to consider them our partners, not competitors.

What are the features of the information policy of your portal?

We try to follow the general guidelines of the Interfax agency, which require us to produce news that is as neutral in tone as possible. At the same time, the share of news about a particular religious tradition or religious organization should be proportional to the number of its members and influence in society. This is necessary so that the information “hyperactivity” of new religious movements, which is observed now, does not create a distorted impression of religious life in Russia. For example, if a religious group became widely known only due to the scandalous inclinations of its “metropolitan,” then it deserves no more than one news story every six months.

We try not to oversaturate our site with negative materials and not to allow openly slanderous statements to be broadcast through it. In general, I believe that serious web portals should not become a dump of compromising evidence, which is often difficult for even a specialist to understand.

All religious organizations that operate in accordance with Russian legislation and do not offer knowingly false materials are invited to cooperate with our portal.

I would also like to draw special attention to the software shell of our portal, which is maximally adapted to the needs of the user of this type of resource. Its main function is to customize the feed, which allows you to quickly select materials by their type, topic and geographic area. In the monitoring of printed, electronic and online media one can find the most complete selection of publications and broadcast materials, and the already mentioned archive contains up to 20 thousand messages that can be useful to researchers of the modern religious history of Russia.

What are the prospects for the development of the Interfax-Religion portal?

First of all, we would like to frequently update the “Analytics” and “Reference Materials” sections, the materials of which help to better understand the meaning of the news and determine their place in the general context. It is also planned to increase the number of all news per day and bring it to 50, which we see as the optimal figure at the moment. Of course, if we display all the materials that come to us, we can easily achieve 200 updates per day, but in such a flow of information, important news will inevitably get mixed up with minor ones and fall out of sight.

In monitoring print media, it is expected to increase the number of reprints from religious newspapers and magazines. I know that many diocesan newspapers of the Russian Orthodox Church often contain articles that are worthy of the widest discussion, and our portal is ready to publish them.

We are now studying the demand for our news among foreign readers and, perhaps, in the future we will make an English-language version of the Interfax-Religion portal. I think that the time has come to tell our foreign colleagues that a lot of positive things are happening in the religious life of Russia and other Commonwealth countries and that it is not limited only to the oppression of Jehovah's Witnesses and Wahhabis.

Interviewed by Artem Pogosov

Valentina Dudkina graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov. Since 1997, she worked at the Interfax news agency, where she covered news of the religious and political life of Russia. At the end of 2004, Valentina Dudkina was appointed editor-in-chief of the Internet portal Interfax.

Religion" (www.interfax-religion.ru).

The Interfax-Religion portal and Moscow State Linguistic University are jointly launching the first interactive map of all religious communities in Russia.

“This is a unique map not only for Russia, but also for the world as a whole - it contains information about 25 thousand religious organizations operating in our country, their exact name and location,” said the author of the map, Associate Professor of Moscow State Linguistic University Roman Silantiev on Tuesday at the presentation of the project at the Interfax central office in Moscow.

According to him, at the moment the map in the public domain contains data only on the traditional religions of Russia, that is, on Orthodox communities, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists. In general, the map contains 12 categories of data on religious organizations, which will be revealed as the map is further developed, noted R. Silantyev.

The map will be updated weekly, and the chronology of updates will be displayed in a special section. R. Silantyev noted that parishioners themselves and experts from the regions will be able to send clarifying data about their religious communities to the map developers. In the future, it is planned to support the map database with more than five thousand photographs.

Access to the map is possible only through the main page of the Interfax-Religion portal. To use it, you need the latest versions of Internet browsers, in particular Internet Explorer version 7 or 8.

As expert cartographer and commercial director of the HitRoad project Evgeniy Filatov said during a press conference, the map interface allows “any sorting” of religious organizations into several types, for example, a map of only Orthodox monasteries or only Muslim educational institutions. Thus, the interactive map allows you to build the optimal car route to any of the temples. “Anyone who comes will be able to understand where he is and build a pilgrimage route for himself,” said E. Filatov.

In the future, it is possible to integrate the map into personal navigation devices.

Advisor to the Speaker of the Federation Council Rakhamim Emanuilov, president of the Interaction of Civilizations Foundation, with whose support the interactive map was created, noted the importance of implementing such projects that help expand knowledge about religious communities in Russia. According to him, the foundation intends to continue to promote “the development of research programs in the religious sphere.”

An interactive map of all religious communities in Russia received the support of the Russian Ministry of Justice and. The developers expressed special gratitude to the Russian Ministry of Justice, which provided significant assistance in preparing the map.

According to R. Silantyev, the map is dedicated to the memory of the outstanding Russian scientist, founder of confessional cartography, Academician Pavel Puchkov.