Russia has been targeting the Tatars with illegal detentions and other threats, even forcing them out of Crimea, but the ethnic minority refuses to accept Moscow’s sovereignty Soon after Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, Moscow launched a crackdown against the region’s Turkic Muslim minority called the Tatars. While the EU raised concerns over the ‘illegal’ detentions of Tatars in the seized region, the Russian aggression against this community is not a new phenomenon. Imperial…

The Dungan, a little-known community of Russian-speaking Muslims of Arab-Chinese descent, have survived years of religious persecution and yet managed to keep their identity intact. KARAKOL, Kyrgyzstan — Karakol is a town of 67,000 people located in eastern Kyrgyzstan, near the eastern tip of Lake Issyk-Kul. It’s home to a small Chinese-looking, Russian-speaking Muslim community called the Dungan, who settled here over 140 years ago. …