MOSCOW, December 17 (RAPSI, Maria Petrova) - The Krasnodar Territorial Court has overturned a ruling on the ban of Elmir Kuliyev’s descriptive Russian translation of the Quran, Kuliyev’s lawyer, Murad Musayev, told RAPSI.

On September 17, the Novorossiisk District Court banned an abridged Russian translation of the Quran by Azerbaijani researcher Elmir Kuliyev.

“The court has ruled in favor of our appeal by refusing to declare the translation an extremist work,” Musayev said.

The court also satisfied a similar complaint by Ravil Tugushev, Board Chairman of the Center for Public Legal Support. In his complaint, Tugushev refers to Article 2 of the Federal Law on Preventing Extremist Activity which states that one of the key principles in preventing extremism is for the state to cooperate with public and religious associations, something the court failed to do in this case. Tugushev therefore believes that the court breached procedural law.

The plaintiff also cited the Constitution that guarantees freedom of conscience and freedom of religion as well as freedom to choose, to have and to share religious and other beliefs and to act upon them. In his statement, Tugushev noted that the above ruling creates a precedent that raises the issue of censoring other translations of the Quran in the future as well as the issue of banning the Quran in Arabic and, as a result, of banning Islam in Russia since the religion is based on the Quran.