NOVOSIBIRSK, February 8 - RAPSI. The first hearing in the extremism case against Imam Ilkhom Merazhov, head of the Asian department of the Russian Board of Muslims, was held in the magistrate's court of the Oktyabrsky District of Novosibirsk on Friday.

The imam has pleaded not guilty.

The case against Merazhov was opened in 2011 on charges of promoting the ideas of Turkish philosopher Said Nursi and heading a local organization of the Nurcular international religious organization, which Nursi founded.

Russian courts recognized Nursi's books as extremist, and the Supreme Court outlawed his Nurcular organization in 2008.

The imam and his assistant, an Uzbek by birth, who is also standing trial, have been charged with "running a religious association which had been outlawed by a court for conducting extremist activities." They are facing up to two years in prison. Merazhov has denounced the hearing as "a trial against religion (Islam)."

The prosecutor, however, replied that the trial was not directed against religion, but against members of the Nurcular movement. The court plans to question the defendants at the next hearing, which is scheduled for February 14.

The Russian Interior Ministry has said that the operation against members of the Nurcular movement was launched in Novosibirsk in 2009. According to law enforcement officers, members of that organization operated in the region from May 2008 to 2011. They secretly promoted extremist theological literature, popularized a radical ideology and recruited new members.