In Tatarstan, they tried to accuse a local imam of rape with the help of a fake

A disinformation campaign has been organized in Tatarstan, trying to use fake social media pages to accuse a local imam of raping a teenager. As Izvestia found out on February 5, law enforcement agencies, having failed to find the real corpus delicti, opened a libel case at the request of the clergyman himself.

"Hazrat (Imam. — Ed.) and we characterize his professional activity positively. We assess the situation as a provocation against Islam and Muslims," the press service of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Tatarstan said, commenting on the accusations against the imam of the Tynychlyk mosque in Zelenodolsk.

The campaign to accuse the local imam was carried out at the end of January, when an emotional message on behalf of the non-existent Nastya Kravtsova began to be distributed across the city's public pages. It claimed that the imam had allegedly committed a crime against the son of her friend "Leyla Galieva", and the authorities were hiding it.

To add weight to the story, other fake accounts were created, including "Leila" and "Aziris Ismailov," who threatened public figures. Information security experts note that all the pages were created shortly before the events, used other people's photos and conducted template activity, which is a hallmark of a coordinated attack.

"The story is launched not from the media, but from social networks — and this is fundamental, because social networks are more viral, from real people, and not some kind of "evil mass media." The starting point is always a few either new or old, but inconspicuous accounts that have not been highlighted before. They publish emotional and sometimes difficult or unverifiable judgments and statements," explained Nikita Prokhorov, Executive Director of Sidorin Lab.

According to him, this is a new type of disinformation that does not convince with facts, but infects with emotions, which makes such campaigns especially dangerous. Social activist Alexander Vasilenko, who tried to help the "victims", eventually became the target of threats himself, which forced him to take the story to the public field for his own protection.

The check showed that none of the real victims and the family of "Leyla Galieva" could be found. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Tatarstan confirmed that there had been no reports of a crime against a minor, and a criminal case had already been opened against the imam.

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On January 27, deputies of the State Duma (DG) from the Fair Russia party proposed criminalizing the creation of deepfakes through automated data processing. It is expected that the change in legislation will not only strengthen the protection of citizens' constitutional rights to privacy and personal data security, but also ensure that Russian legislation complies with modern digital threats.

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