Moscow police said on Wednesday they will examine video footage in which a prominent Muslim figure pledges to "cover Russia in blood" if the authorities refuse to establish courts to implement Islamic law.
"Maybe you are foreigners here, and this is our home. We will set our rules, whether you want this or not," Dagir Khasavov, a lawyer and aide to an upper house committee chairman, said in an interview with the REN TV channel on Tuesday. "Any attempts to stop this will result in blood, we will turn the city into a second dead sea."
Russian Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin condemned Khasavov's statement, but Geidar Dzhemal, the head of the influential group Islamic Committee, said there might have been a "misunderstanding."
Liberal Yabloko party co-head Sergei Mitrokhin said on his Twitter microblog he would ask prosecutors to bring extremist charges against Khasavov.
Khasavov recently announced plans to establish an international Muslim union to be governed by a system of Shariat courts.
Orthodox Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin warned against "restricting the Islamic community in living by their own rules" but said it was unacceptable to "impose these rules on others outside your community."
