Ukrainian Muslims file complaints against TSN with ombudsman and DESS

One of the figures featured in the TSN report, Said Ismagilov. Photo: TSN

The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Ukraine “Umma” issued a sharp statement in response to a TSN segment in which journalists linked a number of Ukrainian Muslim organizations to the Muslim Brotherhood and the financing of terrorism.

In its report, TSN anchored the story in the SBU’s detention of a mosque attendee in Kamianske, Vladyslav Sementsov. The SBU said he may be connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. The segment’s authors used this episode as a starting point for a broader “investigation.”

The first “red flag,” according to TSN, was that Sementsov attended a mosque in Kamianske that had been opened with Umma’s support. Umma’s former head is Said Ismagilov, a native of Donetsk who received religious education at the Moscow Higher Islamic College. The segment shows his video greeting addressed to a Russian audience on the AlifTV channel. The owner of that channel is Russian citizen Ali Efteev, who publicly supported Russia’s aggression against Georgia in 2008. TSN presents this as a second “red flag.”

The journalists then point out that Ismagilov was a representative of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE) – a structure the United Arab Emirates in 2018 added to its list of terrorist organizations alongside al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Special attention in the segment is given to the organization Alraid and its leadership. The former director of the Islamic Cultural Center in Kyiv, Ismail Kadi, and Alraid’s former head, Seiran Arifov, are also members of the FIOE. Arifov, a native of Russia, reportedly still holds an active Russian taxpayer identification number. In an archived 2013 video, he speaks of Alraid’s “ideological closeness” to the Muslim Brotherhood “in matters of understanding Islam.” On an official website, Arifov also expressed support for Hamas – an organization designated as terrorist in the EU and the United States – which, in turn, publicly thanked Russia for its support during the full-scale invasion.

Among other “flags,” TSN cites financial assistance to Alraid from the German foundation Muslim Helfen, which, according to a German domestic security report, is the former BRema Hilfswerk foundation and is directly implicated in financing Hamas. The publishing house Ansar Foundation, a co-founder of Alraid, released books by authors linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, including Ahmad von Denffer – suspected of laundering funds for terrorists – and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, whom the Muslim Brotherhood regarded as a mentor.

At the same time, the segment’s authors included a caveat: “We do not claim that the people mentioned are definitely connected through joint activities with the international terrorist organization ‘the Muslim Brotherhood.’ But facts are facts.”

Ukrainian Muslims called the TSN piece “a classic commissioned job,” in which journalistic standards were sacrificed to the interests of “certain individuals and organizations.” Umma also said it saw an attempt to create grounds for pressure from “certain corrupt representatives of law enforcement.”

“The authors of the segment, as if following the templates of Russian propaganda, are deliberately injecting a virus of religious intolerance into the information space,” the statement says. It adds that in wartime, such materials work solely to the benefit of the enemy.

The organization demanded a public retraction and an apology from the editorial team. It also appealed to DESS, the Commission on Journalistic Ethics, the Verkhovna Rada’s Human Rights Commissioner (the Ombudsman), and members of parliament, asking them to assess what happened.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that a Ukrainian mufti urged the UOC to transfer to the OCU.

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