ST. PETERSBURG, June 26 (RAPSI) – The Kirovsky District Court in St. Petersburg on Wednesday authorized the detainment of three Russian citizens and one Kyrgyzstan national. They can be held until August 7 and are suspected of organizing a Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami group, which is a radical Islamic political movement, RAPSI reports from court.

These four people are suspected of involvement in the Hizb ut-Tahrir group, which operated in St. Petersburg from July 2011 to June 24, 2014. They were arrested on Tuesday in a joint operation of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and police.

According to investigators, the detainees regularly held secret meetings, recruited new members to the group and promoted their extremist views.

The charges, to be brought before August 7, are likely to include the organization of a terrorist/extremist group, and are part of a case the regional FSB department initiated in November 2013.

Russia’s Supreme Court declared Hizb ut-Tahrir an international terrorist organization on February 14, 2003 and prohibited its activity in Russia.

According to a 2003 report by the International Crisis Group conflict-prevention NGO, Hizb ut-Tahrir is a political organization whose aim is to unite all Muslims via the establishment of one large state that could counterbalance the West.

Members of Hizb ut-Tahrir have previously been arrested in various Russian regions but predominantly in large cities in central Russia, the Volga region and Siberia. The organization has many supporters in Crimea, which became a member of the Russian Federation in the spring of 2014.