Moscow-backed leader advocates Chechen national traditions, modest clothes

Chechnya, 21 April: Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has said that measures he introduced to restore customs of the Chechen nation and Islamic traditions have nothing to do with the establishment of the Shari’ah law in the republic.
“I announced the need to revive the Chechen national customs which are based on Islam and that is being done so that people not to commit crimes, but not [with the aim] to restore the Shari’ah law in Chechnya as some people interpret that,” Kadyrov told reporters at the government house in Groznyy.
He recalled that his father – Chechnya’s first President Akhmat Kadyrov from the very start had been against the introduction of the Shari’ah law in the Chechen Republic in the years of the so-called [Chechen] Republic of Ichkeria.
“When everyone in the republic was shouting about the need of the Shari’ah law and the federal centre led by [fugitive Russian tycoon Boris] Berezovskiy was assisting [Aslan] Maskhadov (the former president of Ichkeria), my father was against the introduction of Shari’ah rules. He said that was a serious issue which one should not play with and that the Chechen people were not ready for that,” Kadyrov said.
He said that most of crimes were committed in the republic because people had forgotten national traditions.
“I believe that an individual who observe demands of Islam and respects his customs will never commit crimes, killings, robbery and there will not be corruption and other serious crimes,” Kadyrov said.
He said he had used Islam as a tool in fighting crime.
“I am a Muslim and proud of that. I do not drink [alcohol], do not smoke and observe all the demands of the Muslim faith. And I call on everyone to do the same because Islam is the most peace-loving religion,” he stressed.
Kadyrov added that women should wear modest clothes at work and educational institutions. “I said that women should wear headscarves and modest clothes at work and educational institutions because a vulgarly dressed woman damages the image of an entire institution. To show oneself, one should go to leisure centres,” he said.
In his opinion, revealing clothes and loose hair distract from work and studies.