He estimates the number of sectarians at five to seven hundred. They have been circulating subversive leaflets ever since the Iraqi campaign took start. The extremist leaflets call for a jihad, "holy war", against countries on the anti-Iraqi coalition.
Mr. Jemilev quoted one such leaflet, circulated by the Hazb al-Tahrir, or Liberation Party, esbalished in Palestine, 1953. "He who does not join the jihad is no Muslim, and deserves death," it says.
"Certain proponents of non-traditional Islam are out to split Crimean Muslims by setting up a Crimean Muslim Board alternative to the Crimean Muftiyyate," our interviewee emphatically remarked.
336 Muslim communities have been registered in the Crimea for today. 31 of these are independent from the Muftiyyate, and sponsored from abroad-mainly by Arab countries, said Mustafa Jemilev.
Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma visited today the Crimean-based 47th Detached Regiment of the Interior. He strongly warned against mounting extremism, with its diverse manifestations. The President considers its upswing "abnormal". He spoke up against press outlets and leaflets liberally put out and circulated all over Ukraine to instigate interethnic strife.
In a public appeal of August 30, the Crimean Muslim Board pointed out that "the entire Muslim world qualifies the Hazb al-Tahrir as a criminal organisation, and has outlawed it".
"The latest developments show how the Name of the Almighty and the Koran are used to split a nation. We are set on one another as our young people's piety is played upon," the statement goes on.
The Muslim Board says it has "nothing in common with the Hazb al-Tahrir, or the Wahhabi, or any other radical trends".
The Majlis is Crimean Tatars' diet, elected at a Kurultai-ethniccongress.
