The Republic of Tatarstan, located in the center of Russia’s European territory, has a slight majority of ethnic Tatars, who practice Islam.  Around 40 percent of the region’s residents are ethnic Russians, most of whom practice Russian Orthodox Christianity.

“The investigation and court has established that Kashapov placed articles titled “No to Christianization!” in his blog on the Internet,” the Investigative Committee of the Public Prosecutor’s Office wrote on its website.  “According to the conclusions of a complex psychological assessment, [the article] had information which incited ethnic discord.”

Kashapov published a total of five articles under the same headline.

According to the IslamNews online newspaper, Kashapov penned his entries in response to a simmering religious scandal from early 2008 (Rus) in the region’s second largest city, Naberezhnye Chelny.  Allegedly, children from Muslim families were being baptized by an Orthodox minister against their parent’s will at an area maternity clinic.

After the articles appeared, Kashapov’s home and the office of the Tatar Public Center were searched, and a case was launched against Kashapov.

At issue was the chapter on the conquest of what would later become Russia by the Tataro-Mongol Golden Horde, and the description of the famed 14th century Battle of Kulikovo, where unified Russian forces defeated a Tataro-Mongol army. A historic drawing featured prominently in the text shows the invaders roasting, dismembering and eating Russian soldiers.

“The insult of our national dignity doesn’t just appear in this drawing, but also directly in the text,” Mukhamed Minachev, a representative of the claimants, told the court. “In part, the incredible valor of the Russian warriors is described on pages 87-91 of the textbook, while the Tataro-Mongols are presented as monsters!”

Minachev believes that such a rendition of the battle offends the honor and dignity of present-day Tatars, a primarily Muslim ethnic group that numbers around 6 million across Russia. Furthermore, it may fan the flames of ethnic strife in schools. The claimants had asked that the text be banned, and had asked for compensation for the moral damage they suffered. They promised to appeal and continue their battle in the courts.

The contested schoolbook was first published in 1997. The Moskovsky Komsomolets reached the book’s graphic designer, Nikita Ordinsky. In his words, there was no electronic database of illustrations 11 years ago, as there is now. Images were literally taken from wherever was necessary. Ordinsky could not remember the drawing in question, bus said that it most likely came from a West-European source. He added that is wasn’t a fact that the picture depicts Tataro-Mongols, because Russians were also called Tatars by Western Europeans.

The press-release details the series of events which took place on the December 2nd election day for the State Duma. Khabibullin, along with Olga Panchenko, another KPRF candidate, arrived to polling station number 63, and asked a representative of the local Electoral Commission, Natalya Vitushkina, for information on how many absentee ballots had been given out. Under Russian electoral law, delegates of registered political parties are given full rights as electoral observers, and may ask for information at any polling station.

Vitushkina called her superiors at the regional Commission, and was advised by Farit Shavaviev to give no information to the candidates, and to drive them out of the polling station. Vitushkina then asked the two candidates to leave the building, threatening to call the militsiya if they lingered. She called the authorities after Khabibullin and Panchenko refused, telling the Commission representative that she was breaching their lawful right.

The two officers that arrived, Captain Ilfis Khambikov, and Major Arslan Kamaletdinov, first told the delegates to exit the building, then began to use force to expel them. They first half-dragged Panchenko outside, then threw the 67-year-old Khabibullin into the corridor, using enough strength that his head slammed against a glass window. The shock was enough that the older delegate went into cardiac arrest, and required immediate hospitalization.

The Tatarstan Communists then filed paperwork to the investigative division of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Tatarstan Republic. It was suggested to Khabibullin, however, that he “refrain from seeking justice.”

Still, Khabibullin continued to battle for his rights. On December 27th, as he was walking yet another time to the Prosecutor’s Office, the candidate collapsed and quickly died. “Of course, someone will say, that he had a bad heart. But the Tatarstan communists judge otherwise. The death of our friend is a political murder,” the KPRF press-release says.

The deceased communist was a well-loved politician and an honored man of art of the Tatarstan Republic. Khabibullin founded the Tatar youth theater, and was a merited stage director and educator.