Russia's Invisible War: Crackdown on Salafi Muslims in Dagestan

The Russian government’s response to a decade-long insurgency in Dagestan, a southern Russian republic, has been marked by serious human rights violations. Insurgents also have attacked civilians.

The abuses are set against a background in which authorities treat adherents of Salafism, a fundamentalist interpretation of Sunni Islam that is increasingly popular in Dagestan, as criminal suspects despite the absence of any grounds to suspect them of a specific offense.