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Halloween banned in Moscow schools
Ananova (28.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (29.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Halloween has been banned from schools in Moscow after Russian education chiefs ruled it was too pagan.
Officials caved in to Church demands and issued a blanket ban on all Halloween celebrations from carving pumpkin heads to dressing up.
The Moscow Education Department has ordered all schools in the capital to ban any Halloween celebrations, Izvestia newspaper reported.
In a letter sent to school heads and governors teachers were warned that: "The very fact that Halloween activities contain elements such as the cult of death, rejecting death, personification of death and evil spirits produces a destructive effect upon the psychological, moral and spiritual health of students."
A ban had earlier been called for by Russian Orthodox Church leaders who claimed the pagan festival was "satanic".
Almost one million Russians are involved in religious sects
Pravda (28.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (29.10.2003) C Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - There are about 300-500 various religious sects in Russia. The number of people involved in destructive or occultist religious sects reaches one million. The majority of members are 18-27-year-old people.
Such data was disseminated during the "round table" Totalitarian Sects as Weapons of Mass Destruction conducted in Moscow on Tuesday. Leading psychologists, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, Interior Ministry and other state organs participated in the current discussion.
According to president of the Center for Religious Studies, doctor of philosophy and author of the term "totalitarian sect" Alexander Dvorkin, there are numerous active sects "imported from abroad" on the Russian territory, such as "Scientologists, krishnaites, Jehovah witnesses and munites." Among domestics sects, Mr. Dvorkin mentions Bogorodichny Center (Moscow), Ashram Shambaly (Novosibirsk), Vissarion's sect (Krasnoyarsk region), Radasteya (the Urals region) and others.
"The most powerful and currently growing sect is Neo-Pentecost movement spread around the Urals region, Siberia and the Far East," Mr. Dvorkin stated. "As usual, Mormons and Jehovah witnesses are very active on the Russian territory." Other sects register equal inflow and outflow of members - people, destroyed financially, physically and morally, are simply thrown out after several years of membership.
According to experts, sects actively buy real estate, procure lobbying in local power structures, initiate court procedures on alleged violation of the freedom of conscience, trying to secure a more solid foothold in the Russian society. According to the definition provided by Mr. Dvorkin, a totalitarian sect is an authoritarian organization, which mainly covets political and financial gains, covering its real goals with pseudo-religious, pseudo-cultural and other devious slogans. Many psychological cults are also considered totalitarian sects.
Orthodox Russians see red over plans for Hindu "Vatican" in Moscow
By Nick Paton Walsh
Guardian (22.10.2003)/ HRWF Int. (24.10.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net/ - Email: info@hrwf.net - Alfred Ford, a great-grandson of the motoring legend, Henry, has outraged the conservative Russian Orthodox Church with his plans to build a huge centre for Hare Krishna and Vedic religion worshippers in the centre of Moscow.
The Orthodox Church, whose influence in Russia is rocketing since the fall of Communism eased religious worship, is furious at the prospect that a building big enough to hold 8,000 Hindu worshippers would be built, a few miles from Red Square. The first stone was supposed to be laid in November when the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, visits Moscow. However, that ceremony is in doubt because of the outcry over the centre.
Prominent Russian Orthodox figures have called the church "open religious expansion".
Valentin Lebedev, head of the Union of Orthodox Citizens of Russia, said: "We know that in India, Christianity is persecuted.
"According to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, Hinduism is considered one of the most anti-Christian cults and we do not understand why such an enormous church and cultural centre is necessary in Moscow."
He said the Vedic religion already had one centre in Moscow and that was enough.
Yesterday the union wrote to the Moscow mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, demanding that plans for the centre be scrapped. Mr Lebedev launched a personal attack on the centre's financier, Mr Ford, who is expected to spend about $10m (6m) on the domed structure, which would be the largest of its kind in Europe and has already been nick-named by some the "Hindu Vatican".
Father Mikhail Dudko, secretary of the Commission for Church and Society for the Orthodox Church, said the church did not react to "declarations of intent". But he added that the union's position would closely resemble that of the public, and that the church "always takes into account the positions of the public".
The head of the executive committee of the Krishna Consciousness of Russia, Sergei Zuyev, said Mr Ford had lobbied for the project with Moscow government officials. "He told us that he would like to support the building of such a cultural centre in Moscow." Yet Mr Zuyev said as soon as Mr Ford had made his intentions known, "the Orthodox groups made a fuss".
He added: "The Orthodox Church, from our point of view, is one of the most totalitarian sects in the world which in Russia disguises itself as a state religion.
"It is the source of intolerance and mixing the Orthodox belief with nationalism is a really explosive and dangerous mixture."
Vedic believers say they are 90,000 strong in Russia.
Mr Ford, during a visit to Moscow last week, said: "For me the most important thing is to spread the Hindu knowledge about the soul. This is more important than any other knowledge and is my main priority".
Moscow patriarch stresses need to censure "proselytism"
Zenit.org (26.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (29.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Patriarch Alexy II of the Russian Orthodox Church says that if a meeting with John Paul II is to take place, "proselytism" must be censured.
Referring to what would be the first meeting between a Russian Orthodox leader and a Pope, the patriarch told journalists Thursday that "at least proselytism must be condemned."
"I don't want it to be a meeting in front of television cameras, which would not obtain any results," the 74-year-old patriarch said. "We should meet and talk about certain concrete issues, especially proselytism."
The Orthodox Church has accused the Catholic Church of proselytism in Russian territories.
In a July 2002 interview with Vatican Radio, Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said he was willing to analyze, together with the Orthodox patriarchate, what is understood by the term "proselytism."
"The Holy See's policy with the Russian Orthodox Church is clear," he said on that occasion. "We want dialogue, we want collaboration; we reject proselytism, we want ecumenism, we want to promote the pastoral care of our Catholics."
Baptists being punished for independence
By Lawrence A. Uzzell
Moscow Times (15.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (17.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - A Baptist congregation in Moscow is meeting for Sunday worship in the city's increasingly chilly parks, just as it did during the Soviet years, because officials now bar it from renting any public building. Its experience reflects an unspoken rule of President Vladimir Putin's Russia: The less you collaborated with the old Soviet state, the more likely you will suffer repression today.
I should stress that the experience of pastor Alexei Kalyashin's Baptist community is unusual. The great majority of Baptists in Moscow will have prayed indoors this Sunday in facilities that the government allows them to rent or own. The difference is that Kalyashin's Baptists are not part of the mainstream Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. Like the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, the leaders of the mainstream Baptist Union made the compromises needed for registration under the Soviet regime. Baptists who rejected such compromises split from the Baptist Union in 1961, forming the International Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists.
Russian politicians justify restrictions on religious freedom as "protectionist" defenses against Western missionaries. By that standard, the Council of Churches would deserve not less but more freedom than the larger Baptist Union, the preferred partner of well-funded U.S. bodies such as the Southern Baptist Convention. But precisely because most of the Western missionary organizations actively defend only Western missionaries or their Russian partners, the completely indigenous Council of Churches is a vulnerable target.
The Council of Churches reports harassment in other Russian cities as well: confiscation of religious books in the Stavropol region and forcible disruption of open-air revivals and worship services in the Tyumen and Belgorod regions. Geraldine Fagan, Moscow correspondent for the Forum 18 News Service, has tried but failed to get comments from officials dealing with religious affairs in those localities.
Council of Churches spokesman Venyamin Khorev told me in a recent interview that the independent Baptists nevertheless enjoy far more freedom today than they did in Soviet times. But as a whole, he said, the trend is in the wrong direction with more repression today than a year or two ago. The independent Baptists are free to hold small prayer meetings in the homes of individual members, but face increasing obstacles to proclaiming their beliefs in public.
No matter what your own religious beliefs are, one has to respect the independent Baptists for their principles and rejection of opportunistic deals with atheist officials or Western missionaries. Of all the Protestant denominations in today's Russia, they deserve the most support from human rights advocates of all persuasions. That they don't get it is a commentary not on them, but on us.
Annual conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses disrupted and cancelled in Russia
Watch Tower Office of Public Information (08.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (17.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - On the morning of 29 August 2003, the annual three-day convention of Jehovah's Witnesses opened at the Culture and Sports Palace stadium in the city of Stavropol. Hundreds of families present for the peaceful convention were stunned to see police officers enter the stadium, force their way onto the stage, push the speaker aside, and order all in attendance to leave the premises. At the same time, city and police officials outside attempted to prevent anyone from entering the stadium, causing confusion for the 1,300 in attendance. The following day, entrances to the stadium were locked, and arriving delegates were ordered to go home, thus forcing cancellation of the convention.
One week earlier, 22 August 2003, a convention of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russian sign language was scheduled in Stavropol. However, city officials and police officers repeatedly demanded that local sign-language congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses cancel the event. In an effort to disrupt the convention, the electricity and the water supply to the convention facilities were shut off for periods of time on 22 and 23 August.
In July of this year, a district convention of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city of Pyatigorsk was disrupted by police, forcing its cancellation. Arriving delegates found the entrances to the convention site blocked by police. Over the next three days, up to 10,000 delegates-including the elderly and little children-came each morning to the stadium but found the gates locked. Thousands stood for hours waiting in vain for the gates to be opened. Because of this interference, no one could gain access to the stadium, and it was impossible to hold the convention.
Similar incidents of disrupting conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses have occurred before in the Stavropol Territory, in the town of Nezlobnaya in 2001 and in the city of Georgiyevsk in 2000. Since there have been numerous unsuccessful attempts to clarify the situation with local officials in the Stavropol Territory, there is no indication that officials will cease disrupting conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Constitution of the Russian Federation guarantees the right to freedom of conscience and religious confession, which includes the right to peaceful assembly for worship. There are over 130,000 Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.
Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia
197739 St. Petersburg, ul. Srednyaya, 6
Telephone: + (7) (812) 434-3850
Fax: + (7) (812) 437-0970
Contact in Britain: Paul Gillies
Telephone: (020) 8906 2211
Facsimile: (020) 8371 0051
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Moscow Baptist street service broken up
Forum 18 News Service (03.09.2003)/ HRWF Int. (04.09.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Baptists singing and praying in a Moscow courtyard "disturbed public order and the peace of those relaxing nearby," a local municipal court ruled on 11 August.
The court fined one of the Baptists 500 roubles (125 Norwegian kroner, 15 Euros or 16 US dollars) for allegedly using expletives while being ushered into a police car as officers broke up the 26 July gathering. A member of the congregation based in the Moscow district where the meeting was broken up categorically denied that the Baptist who had been fined had in fact sworn. "Believers don't swear," Veniamin Khorev told Forum 18 News Service in Moscow on 25 August. He added that the accused has refused to pay the fine, and the congregation has formally appealed to Moscow City Council, with no response so far.
According to a 16 August statement from the Baptist Council of Churches, the group met at the location in southern Moscow on 26 July for an evangelistic service. Asked to disperse by police soon after beginning worship, they refused, "citing the Biblical command to go out and preach about God's salvation."
The Council of Churches is the ruling body of the International Union of Baptist Churches, which broke away from the mainstream Baptist Union over issues of co-operation with the atheist Soviet state in 1961. The Union continues to adhere to a rigid principle of separation of church and state, according to which none of its current 3,705 congregations throughout the former Soviet Union are registered.
Khorev maintained that Russia's 1997 law on religion gives even an unregistered religious group such as his own the right to gather in any public place. State officials, on the other hand, maintain that a gathering of ten or more persons constitutes a picket, he explained, for which the organisers must inform the local authorities in advance. Since the Baptists' aims are not political, "we argue that we are not a picket," he said.
Forum 18 notes that, under Article 16 of the 1997 law, religious gatherings in open public spaces must take place in accordance with a 1992 presidential decree, which rules that mass meetings, street processions, demonstrations and pickets may take place freely provided that the relevant local authority has been given advance warning.
Konstantin Blazhenov, vice-chairman of Moscow City Council's Committee for Relations with Religious Organisations, told Forum 18 on 27 August that he was not aware of the 26 July incident, and was thus unable to comment on it. But he maintained that mass gatherings of any kind "must be registered with the authorities". This, he confirmed, meant informing the state authorities in advance of the event.
Khorev remarked to Forum 18 that the 26 July incident was "part of the normal life of our church." The Council of Churches has indeed reported similar occurrences elsewhere in Russia this year.
In March, FSB (former KGB) officers reportedly confiscated books from the travelling Christian library of an unregistered Baptist congregation in the southern region of Stavropol, threatening legal consequences should its activity continue. In May, the Council of Churches reported that police removed a tent from the evangelistic meeting of its members in the town of Yalutorovsk, Tyumen region. Accused of violating the procedure for conducting mass meetings, street processions, demonstrations and pickets under Article 20, Part 2 of the Administrative Violations Code, six members of the Yalutorovsk group were reportedly sentenced to five days in a detention centre, while four were fined a total of 8,000 roubles (1,984 Norwegian kroner, 240 Euros or 256 US dollars).
According to a further Council of Churches statement, police destroyed a tent erected by a congregation in the town of Chernyanka in the south-western Belgorod region, on 1 June. Two days later, the document continues, officers broke up an open air worship service at the same site and detained all the Baptists present, holding them at a local police station for approximately four hours.
Forum 18 has been unable to obtain any response from the officials dealing with religious affairs in these areas. Questioning Blazhenov about the general situation for the unregistered Baptists in Russia, however, he replied that it was the first time he had heard of such incidents. "Citizens must obey the laws of whatever country they live in," he remarked, pointing out that a March for Jesus through the capital in June had taken place without any form of obstruction. The various Protestant organisers of this event had informed the authorities of their plans in advance, he added, who had arranged corresponding security and emergency medical provision.
Forum 18 notes that, while an individual member of a religious group may rent premises for worship in theory, in Moscow the absence of legal personality status nevertheless prevents the capital's unregistered Baptist congregation from doing so in practice (see F18 News 13 March 2003). Its approximately 700 members are thus unable to meet as a whole congregation, and usually gather in numerous individual private flats.
Over the summer, Khorev reported, the Baptists found one solution in meeting at various sites in forests around the city. This, notes Forum 18, marks a return to their practice of the Soviet period.
Source: F18News http://www.forum18.org/
Do Sunday School children need written parental permission?
By Geraldine Fagan
Forum 18 News Service (27.08.2003)/HRWF Int. (27.08.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - An Eastern-rite Catholic priest in the Siberian city of Omsk may be fined for teaching religion to the children in his parish without the written permission of their parents.
Fr Sergi Golovanov told Forum 18 News Service that he has refused to comply with the demand from the local justice department for him to supply written parental permission, pointing out that the country's law on religion does not specify that such permission must be given in writing. However, the official dealing with religious organisations in Omsk region Vasili Tkach insisted to Forum 18 on 26 August that the state authorities were acting in accordance with the law.
At the end of July, Fr Sergi received a letter from the Omsk department of justice accusing his parish of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God of violating Article 3, Part 5 of Russia's 1997 law on religion, which prohibits "attraction of minors" to a religious association, as well as religious instruction to children "without the agreement of their parents or guardians".
In view of this, continues the letter, which has been viewed by Forum 18, the parish must provide the justice department with written parental permission for the children to attend Sunday school by 15 August. Failure to do so could result in Fr Sergi being charged with "disobeying the lawful demand of a governmental inspectorate representative," which attracts a fine of between 10 and 20 times the minimum wage, currently between 1000 and 2000 roubles (253 to 506 Norwegian kroner, 30 to 60 Euros, or 33 to 66 US dollars).
Fr Sergi emphasised that, while he had previously received the verbal agreement of the parents of the five children who receive religious instruction at the parish, written permission is nowhere specified in the law. Neither does the official commentary to the 1997 religion law make any mention of written parental permission, notes Forum 18.
Believing the local department of justice therefore to have no legal basis in making such a demand, Fr Sergi has not complied with it and has received no further warning, he told Forum 18 from Omsk on 26 August. A visit by justice department officials to the parish prior to the demand was part of a general check-up on religious organisations in the region, in his view, the aim of which was to "try to find some kind of legal violation".
While he was unaware of the particulars of the letter to Fr Sergi, Tkach maintained that written parental permission had probably been requested in order to prove that the parish had not violated the legal provision in question.
The Omsk department of justice is obliged to conduct ongoing check-ups of social and religious organisations, Tkach explained, and is currently asking all professional educational establishments to obtain a licence for their activity. While acknowledging that a Sunday school may well not require such registration, Tkach maintained that a request for written parental permission may be issued in that context.
From F18News http://www.forum18.org/
Is Kostroma missionary black spot?
By Geraldine Fagan
Forum 18 News Service (04.07.2003)/HRWF Int. (04.07.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - US citizens Ronald and Virginia Cook and Jeffrey, Susan and Jordan Wollman were active church workers in the evangelical Kostroma Christian Church until June and July 2002, when all five were denied visas to the Russian Federation. On a recent visit to Kostroma, Forum 18 News Service discovered that a US citizen working in the city with the Wollmans' former employees, the Colorado-based Christian humanitarian aid organisation Children's HopeChest, was also refused a visa at the same time, while US preacher Bill Norton, who had previously visited the city twice a year, is seemingly now barred from entering Russia. This total of seven makes Kostroma the location in Russia associated with the greatest number of known foreign church worker expulsions.
From 1999 Norton visited the Family of God Pentecostal Church twice a year, the church's pastor, Andrei Danilov, told Forum 18 in Kostroma on 15 June. Since summer 2002, however, he has been refused an entry visa three times. Following the latest refusal, the Pentecostal church in Syzran which issued the third invitation made enquiries at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Danilov, and was told that Norton was barred "in connection with a threat to national security".
Also speaking to Forum 18 on 15 June, Pastor Vladimir Denisychev of Kostroma Christian Church said he "honestly could not understand" why the Cooks and Wollmans were denied visas, especially since the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already issued a valid invitation to the Cooks by that time. Themselves surprised, Foreign Ministry officials in Moscow cited "the competent organs" (i.e. the FSB, or former KGB), he said, but the local FSB in Kostroma subsequently claimed to him not to know anything about the affair.
Denisychev suggested to Forum 18 that Kostroma Orthodox diocese, with whom "everything has to be agreed", had ordered the refusals, even though this meant that the diocese was effectively more powerful than the Foreign Ministry. Although Forum 18 submitted questions in writing to Archbishop Aleksandr as requested on 17 June, and he had previously remarked by telephone that he would definitely answer them the same week, Forum 18 has yet to receive an answer.
Speaking to Forum 18 in her office on 16 June, the Kostroma region official dealing with religious affairs said she did not see any reason for the visa refusals. When she enquired at the local FSB, officials expressed astonishment, said Marina Smirnova, since they had no complaints about the church workers and thought the refusals could only be the result of a decision taken at federal level of which they had not been informed. Smirnova herself stated categorically that neither the Cooks nor the Wollmans had done anything against the law, "let alone against the state - they worked exactly as they were supposed to do".
Notably, however, when earlier mentioning what she regarded as "not quite legal" methods used in Pastor Danilov's church and featured in film shown on Kostroma's local television news in 2000 (see separate F18News article), she specified that these were employed "when foreign missions visit them".
Asked if the FSB truly considered him a threat to state security, Danilov remarked that this might be so at the top of that organisation, "but at the local level the Orthodox and the FSB are just friends, the bosses of both structures socialise together". This friendship is long-standing, he maintained, being born of the Soviet situation in which clergymen who did not inform to the KGB were either removed or sent far away, "so they ended up collaborating".
Pastor Denisychev told Forum 18 that he had had an FSB supervisor ("kurator") with whom he was expected to have regular "chats" right up until 1995. An informed source in Kostroma city claimed to Forum 18 that the vast majority of religious figures in positions of responsibility were still approached by local FSB officials for information.
Pastor Denisychev is now seeking to challenge the visa refusals. In early June his church submitted documents to invite the Cooks back to Russia. Three young church members are due to study for a year with the Wollmans in Simferopol, Ukraine, he added, after which they will carry out the same orphanage work in Kostroma which the Wollmans would have conducted had they not been refused entry to Russia.
Source: http://www.forum18.org/
State opposition to Kostroma Pentecostals continues
By Geraldine Fagan
Forum 18 News Service (04.07.2003)/ HRWF Int. (04.07.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - On the eve of public holidays on 12, 13 and 14 June, Pastor Andrei Danilov of the Family of God Pentecostal Church in the city of Kostroma 400 kilometres (250 miles) north-east of Moscow received a demand from his regional department of justice for numerous internal church papers. A "check-up" on the church's activity was planned, it explained, which required documentation pertaining to the acquisition of church funds, confirmation of engagement in educational and charitable activity, congregation membership records and minutes of recent church meetings to be submitted - all by 16 June. "Other churches haven't been asked," Danilov pointed out as he showed the demand to Forum 18 News Service on 15 June. Pastor Vladimir Denisychev of the neighbouring Kostroma Christian Church confirmed this later the same day.
This is just the latest incident in a stand-off between the Kostroma authorities and Pastor Danilov's church which dates back to 15 May 2000, when Family of God and a second local Pentecostal church, Grace, were denied state re-registration. In October that year Kostroma regional state broadcasting company showed a film of the two churches' services as part of a local news bulletin. According to Danilov the footage, which showed scenes of his parishioners "falling in the Spirit" when blessed by visiting US preacher Bill Norton, was taken in secret and accompanied by a commentary containing accusations of hypnotism.
In November 2000 Kostroma regional justice department filed suit for the liquidation of the two churches but failed to prove that, as stipulated by Russia's 1997 religion law, damage to the health or morality of citizens had occurred as a result of hypnosis. The two churches went on to receive confirmation of re-registration just two days before the same law's deadline of 31 December 2000.
Despite having full legal status, however, "the opposition continues," Pastor Danilov told Forum 18 on 15 June. After the two churches tried to prevent the use of secret film as evidence becoming legal precedent in Russia, he said, Kostroma's regional public prosecutor ordered a retrial of the 2000 case. While the regional court upheld the previous verdict on 28 January 2003, his church has otherwise not been so successful: over the past 18 months, the 200-strong congregation has had to change its rented worship premises on three occasions.
In early 2002, Danilov told Forum 18, Family of God was forced to leave Kostroma's philharmonic hall after its director came under pressure from various parties, including the local Orthodox diocese and the security services. After a few summer months at an educational institute, the church was again asked to leave, in Danilov's view due to Orthodox pressure.
Over the winter the congregation rented the city's Patriot military house of culture until once more being asked to move on, this time, thinks Danilov, as a result of a friendship between the local assistant military commander and Orthodox Archbishop Aleksandr (Mogilyov) of Kostroma and Galich. The church's current rental agreement is with a city cinema. "The FSB (former KGB) has already had a word with the director," Danilov remarked.
Pointing to "Pastors with a Pocket Calculator," an article published by local state-controlled newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda Kostroma" on 18 April, Danilov maintained that articles similarly attacking his church appear in the local press approximately every two or three months. According to this latest one, Pastor Danilov's true aim in attracting numerous "adepts" by showing the Jesus Film is to increase his church's fabulous wealth.
In common with many other Russian Protestants, Danilov believes such "ordered" by other structures, in his view the Orthodox Church and the FSB: "They work together against so-called sects." A further form of state pressure, he said, was that of depriving his church of visits by US preacher Bill Norton, who is now unable to obtain a Russian visa (see separate F18News article).
Speaking to Forum 18 in her office on 16 June, the Kostroma region official dealing with religious affairs insisted that the state authorities' concern about the Family of God Church was justified. Referring to the film shown in the October 2000 news bulletin (which, she maintained, should not be regarded as having been taken in secret, since the service was open to the general public), Marina Smirnova maintained that "a pastor shouldn't conduct such activity". In what was clearly hypnosis, she maintained, the film showed people falling to the floor and then coming round. "It was clear they didn't know where they'd been - what if one of them had had a heart attack?"
Smirnova acknowledged, however, that, in accordance with the 1997 religion law, harm inflicted through hypnosis - and not just hypnosis itself - must be proven before a religious organisation can be liquidated. She also agreed that the same law stipulates that state expert analysis by religious specialists prior to re-registration may take place only if a religious organisation is not affiliated to a centralised religious organisation. While the Kostroma state authorities had failed in the first instance and violated the law in the second, however, Smirnova continued to defend their response: "This concerns the lives of OUR people... hopefully we caused Danilov to think twice, I call that a result." In her view, the situation has exposed a deficiency in the 1997 law, which should be amended either so that centralised religious organisations carry greater responsibility for the activity of those affiliated to them, or to allow the possibility of local expert analysis in all instances. Although Forum 18 submitted questions in writing to Archbishop Aleksandr as requested on 17 June, and he had previously remarked by telephone that he would definitely answer them the same week, Forum 18 has yet to receive an answer.
Source: http://www.forum18.org/
Cracks down on outlawed Islamic Party
Authorities round up 55 members accused of plotting against the government
by Peter Baker
The Washington Post (10.06.2003)/ HRWF Int. (12.06.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Russian authorities have launched a crackdown against an outlawed Islamic party accused of plotting against the government, rounding up 55 leaders and members of the group in the capital in recent days.
The Federal Security Service, the domestic successor to the KGB, announced that it had found plastic explosives, hand grenades, dynamite and detonator cords during raids aimed at breaking the local branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation, which was banned in February for alleged terrorist connections.
"We do not have any doubts or illusions about their actions," FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko said in an interview today. "We had investigative information about their preparations. They were preparing fighters to send to Chechnya" and readying for possible terrorist acts in Moscow. Ignatchenko called them "Muslim brothers" of al Qaeda.
Islamic leaders, however, called the roundup just the latest persecution against Muslims in Russia and said the government was using the international war on terrorism as an excuse to justify broader repression. Most of those arrested were from Uzbekistan or Tajikistan. Among them was Alisher Musayev, head of the Moscow branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Akram Dzhalolov, a leading activist, according to authorities.
"It's a fantasy to say someone wants to establish a Muslim order or overthrow the existing regime," said Nafigulla Ashirov, chief mufti for the Asian part of Russia. "This is not real, as the goals they supposedly have are not realistic. I'm just afraid that this is more of a hunt for ghosts, as we usually say."
Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in 1952 in Saudi Arabia to promote the restoration of the caliphate, or Islamic state, of the Prophet Mohammed under conservative sharia law. From the Middle East and Europe, the movement eventually spread to Central Asia, where in recent years it has taken aim at secular governments such as that of Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov.
According to the book "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia," by Pakistani author Ahmid Rashid, Hizb ut-Tahrir "does not advocate a violent overthrow of Muslim regimes as do other extremist groups, such as Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda" but instead "believes in winning over mass support" that would lead to the peaceful removal of such governments. Karimov has responded with a brutal campaign that has imprisoned thousands of people suspected of links to the party.
Other nations have begun targeting Hizb ut-Tahrir lately as well. Germany banned the group in January on accusations of fomenting anti-Semitic sentiment and police there raided more than 80 buildings in April to seize documents and computers.
A party leader today condemned the arrests in Russia and disputed claims that weaponry was found. "We do not undertake violent action," Imran Waheed, the group's London representative, said by telephone. "The Russian government has a long history of planting evidence on people."
"The reality," he added, "is that major powers such as America, such as Russia, such as Britain are very much opposed to political Islam and they're willing to support any means used against advocates of political Islam."
Russian court backs Muslim scarves in IDs
AP (15.05.2003) / HRWF Int. (22.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email info@hrwf.net - Russia's Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Muslim women will be allowed to wear headscarves in photographs for official documents, and Russia's large Muslim community hailed the decision as a victory for freedom of religion.
In its Thursday ruling, the court overturned its March rejection of an appeal by a 10 Muslim women from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region, who objected to a police requirement that they be bareheaded in ID photos. The reason for the reversal was not immediately known.
The Quran, the Muslim holy book, requires women to dress modestly, and women in most Islamic societies wear headscarves if not more all-encompassing coverings. But Russian police have prohibited head coverings in photographs for internal passports, the all-purpose identity documents required for all citizens.
"The Supreme Court, in effect, fixed the Muslim's right to profess their religion full-fledged," Nafigulla Ashirov, the chief mufti of Siberia and the Far East, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Leisan Gusmanova, one of the 10 women involved in the case, told Russia's NTV that she prayed all night on the eve of the ruling.
"I was not the only one who was praying, many people were praying," she said.
The women said that removing one's scarf in public is a grave sin, so they were left with the choice of violating Russian rules or the Quran, which they consider the ultimate law.
The headscarf issue came up last year, as authorities gave out new Russian passports to replace the old Soviet ones still in use.
The Interior Ministry criticized the ruling, and said it planned to appeal.
Trial to ban Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow resumes
JW Office of Public Information (12.05.2003)/ HRWF Int. (13.05.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The retrial aimed at banning Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow is scheduled to resume on May 14, 2003, in the Golovinsky Intermunicipal District Court, Judge Vera K. Dubinskaya presiding.
In April 2002 the Council of Europe adopted a resolution that described the problems Jehovah's Witnesses were experiencing in Moscow as "discrimination and harassment." This followed a report by co-rapporteurs David Atkinson and Rudolf Bindig, in which they recommended that "after six years of criminal and legal proceedings the trial should finally be halted." Mr. Atkinson told the Parliamentary Assembly that the banning of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow was "totally unacceptable."
From 1995 to 1998 the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses were investigated five times by various teams of prosecutors and investigators, each investigation concluding that there were no grounds for a case against the community. Nevertheless, trial hearings began on September 29, 1998, based on the 1997 law On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations. Finally, on February 23, 2001, all charges against Jehovah's Witnesses were dismissed by Judge Yelena Prokhorycheva, who stated in her decision: "There is no basis whatsoever for the liquidation and banning of the religious community of Jehovah's Witnesses."
The City Prosecutor's Office successfully appealed this decision, and the retrial began on October 30, 2001. With no end in sight, defense lawyer John Burns argued that the trial should be halted because "after 81 days in court and 77 witnesses testifying, and with repeated delays caused by needless court-ordered expert studies of religious literature, and still no decision, the case contravenes Article 6 of the European Convention that provides: 'In the determination of his civil rights and obligations . . . everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time.'"
Court closes down Bible College
by Geraldine Fagan
Forum 18 News Service (21.04.2003)/ HRWF Int. (24.04.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - On 21 March Primorsky Krai regional court in Russia's Far East ruled to close down the charismatic Faith in Action Bible College in Vladivostok. Speaking to Forum 18 News Service, the public prosecutor's representative in the case, Nina Saiko, defended the court-ordered closure, arguing that the college was conducting "educational activity" without a licence in violation of the education law. The college's lawyer Aleksei Kolupayev insisted to Forum 18 that it was not conducting educational activity "but simple study for religious believers, a right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Russian Constitution." Others claim that the FSB (former KGB) has been harassing the college and looking for excuses to close it down.
The authorities in the Pacific region of Primorsky Krai have closed down a Bible college on the outskirts of the regional capital, Vladivostok. On 21 March Primorsky Krai regional court ruled in favour of regional public prosecutor Valeri Vasilenko's suit against the charismatic Faith in Action Bible College. Speaking to Forum 18 News Service from Vladivostok on 21 April, the public prosecutor's representative in the case, Nina Saiko, defended the court-ordered closure, arguing that the college was conducting "educational activity" without a licence in violation of the law.
The college is registered as a local religious organisation under the auspices of the Centre of the Living God, a centralised religious organisation embracing approximately 40 charismatic churches throughout Primorsky Krai, Svetlana Mishchenko told Forum 18 from Vladivostok on 17 April. Mishchenko's husband, Aleksei, is pastor of the organisation's parent church, the Church of the Living God, which is situated alongside the Bible College in a Vladivostok suburb.
Prior to its closure, 11 senior and 19 junior students were resident at the college. While some study is continuing in the form of seminars at the adjacent church, said Mishchenko, these students are no longer able to stay at on-site residential premises.
The defence lawyer to the college, Aleksei Kolupayev, told Forum 18 on 17 April that the public prosecutor had accused the Bible College of conducting religious instruction without a licence. According to Article 33 of Russia's 1992 education law, an institution must be in possession of a licence in order to conduct "educational activity".
In this case, however, "the organisation was not conducting educational activity," Kolupayev declared, "but simple study for religious believers, a right guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Russian Constitution." Russia's education law considers activity to be educational only if students receive a qualification and a certificate of education at the end of it, he pointed out, while not a single Bible College student has received such a document.
However, Saiko insisted that the college was providing more than simple study for religious believers. Students at the college constantly follow special programmes for which they are given grades, recommendations and diplomas, she maintained. While she had not seen any diplomas since the college "refused to show them to us," Saiko said she had seen a document recommending a student for a church post on the basis of their study. It was for all these reasons, she said, that the public prosecutor had decided that the college was conducting educational activity.
A foreign church worker who has assisted the Church of the Living God for several years maintains that the local authorities are bent on closing down the Bible College. Noel Morris told Forum 18 from New Zealand that FSB (former KGB) officers and officials from Primorsky Krai regional department for religious affairs first visited the Bible College in early February. "Week after week they kept coming for several hours each day. They had copies of e-mails and faxes that had been intercepted. They were looking for any small excuse [to close down the college]."
Pressure is also being exerted on the Bible College in the form of impossibly burdensome demands by the local Fire and Sanitation Departments, Morris maintained. In an April message received by Forum 18, Svetlana Mishchenko says that the college must install a fire alarm costing 1,400 US dollars (10,090 Norwegian kroner or 1,285 Euros), while "to do a minimum of what they ask in the kitchen" would cost 2,000 US dollars.
In order to have an appeal case at Russia's Supreme Court in Moscow, the college must now find a further 2,000 US dollars, wrote Mishchenko. The appeal, to be fought on behalf of the college by the Moscow-based Slavic Centre for Law and Justice, was lodged on 31 March, but no date for it has yet been announced.
Liquidation no longer threatens Salvation Army in Moscow
More Court Proceedings Ahead?
Slavic Center for Law and Justice (18.04.2003) /HRWF Int. (24.04.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - On March 16, the Moscow City Court upheld the decision of the Taganski regional Court in Moscow which denied to liquidate the Moscow Branch of the Salvation Army. A year and a half ago, this same court passed a decision about the liquidation of this Protestant religious organization, which earlier had been recognized as "paramilitary" by Russian judicial authorities.
Now that liquidation no longer threatens the Salvation Army in Moscow, the Slavic Center for Law and Justice, which represents the organization's interests in court proceedings, intends to achieve a reversal of the resolutions currently in effect which have recognized this religious and charitable organization as paramilitary. The statement about the "paramilitary" character of the "Salvation Army" has now the status of a fact, established by the court, and consequently can be used in any upcoming proceedings. The existence of such decisions basically opens unlimited opportunities for the executive and judicial branches of power to rule arbitrarily against to religious associations.
Besides Russian judicial authorities, the Salvation Army puts its hope on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which in the near future will review the question of acceptability of the application filed by the organization in June of 2001. Last week the lawyers of the Slavic Center for Law and Justice filed additional observations and update on this case to the Strasbourg Court.
Baptist group in Moscow denied public library
after 2 years' use
BP News (20.03.2003) / HRWF Int. (24.03.2003) - Website http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A 300-strong unregistered Baptist community in Moscow is searching for a new place to worship after being informed that they can no longer rent premises at a public library near the world-famous Tretyakov Gallery, Forum 18 News Service reported March 13.
For the past six years the congregation has been holding several meetings a week after opening hours at the Ushinsky Public Library, pastor Aleksei Kalyashin told Forum 18 in Moscow. In mid-January, the library's administration unexpectedly informed the Baptists they could no longer use the premises and returned an advance rental payment for the first quarter of 2003.
Kalyashin told Forum 18 he does not believe the library administration is behind the move. "They were always very well-disposed towards us," he said from his home in mid-February, noting that they had not previously experienced interference of any kind there. "Pressure from above" was the only explanation given for the termination of the congregation's verbal rental agreement, he said, and the library's administrator would not elaborate.
On Jan. 12, Forum 18 observed what would be one of the Baptists' last meetings at the library, where there was standing room only for two visiting Dutch preachers.
As in the early days of perestroika in the late 1980s, Kalyashin said the congregation is currently forced to meet at up to seven different private homes at a time.
Because of a lack of space, Kalyashin recounted, a decision was made to divide the congregation into two groups in 2000. The 100-strong subgroup soon began to experience difficulties not encountered by those at the Ushinsky Library.
"Pressure from above" was similarly cited by library administrators when the subgroup had rental agreements terminated three times in the course of the subsequent two years, he said.
Kalyashin told Forum 18 he supposes that the congregation was expelled because, as an unregistered religious group, they do not have legal status according to Russia's 1997 law on religion. The congregation is a member of the International Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians/Baptists, which broke away from the mainstream Baptist Union over issues of cooperation with the atheist Soviet state in 1961.
Kalyashin argued that under the 1997 law on religion, which supersedes local legislation, a religious group may rent property through the physical person of an individual group member. The law states that "premises and property necessary for the activities of a religious group are to be provided for the use of the group by its participants." The official commentary to this provision determines that such premises may be either the property of a member or be rented or used by them on a temporary basis on other grounds: "... an organization where a participant works may be made available to them, for example."
Without confirming the existence of municipal legislation prohibiting individuals from renting public property, the press relations officer at Moscow City Council's Committee for Relations with Religious Organizations told Forum 18 Feb. 21 that such a practice was indeed followed. Konstantin Blazhenov, referencing the religion law, said members of a religious group may make available for its worship only such property that is at their personal disposal. He also noted that "plenty of religious organizations" rented cinemas and other public premises in Moscow without hindrance.
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Pacific island keeps Protestants in check
By Geraldine Fagan,
Forum 18 News Service (18.03.2003)/ HRWF Int. (18.03.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - A recent regional press campaign targeting the Sakhalin-based Victory Chapel Pentecostal church was spearheaded by the local Orthodox bishop, believes that church's pastor, Paris Dominguez, a United States citizen. Following publication of "sensational and accusative" articles last summer, Dominguez and a colleague were told by two Sakhalin newspaper editors that they were acting at the bidding of Bishop Daniil (Dorovskikh) of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, the pastor told Forum 18 News Service on 11 March.
While not mentioning any individual church, a two-column commentary by Bishop Daniil incorporated into an article in Telemir local newspaper identifies the proliferation in Russia of "sects" - Baptists, Adventists, Pentecostals and evangelical Christians are named - as a "state problem". The local authorities should deal with increasing numbers of Protestants "trying to turn Sakhalin into a spiritual rubbish dump," urges the Orthodox bishop. "Together we must cleanse Sakhalin from every kind of sect."
In the main article, journalist Anna Bilega suggests that Victory Chapel engages in destructive practices, such as hypnotism, estranging church members from their families and getting them to give away their money. Typical is her account of how, when she visited the church posing as an interested member of the public, Pastor Dominguez asked anyone present with rich relatives to raise their hand: "A rather common psychological trick."
Pastor Dominguez insisted to Forum 18 that this enquiry about rich relatives had been taken out of context. "Obviously no one on Sakhalin has rich relatives! It was to make a point - how you would feel if you suddenly found out that you had a rich relative who had bequeathed you a lot of money? I was preaching about our inheritance in Christ - riches that neither moths nor rust can corrupt."
Asked by Forum 18 on 12 March why she had written the article, Bilega said that Telemir had received letters of concern from parents whose children had "got caught up in this sect". There were currently a great many foreign missionaries trying to foist their ideology onto Sakhalin residents, she remarked, and "turn us against the traditional Russian Orthodox Church". While these missionaries might be working for foreign intelligence agencies, she speculated, the local authorities "don't do anything, as usual".
Since moved to Yaroslavl region in European Russia, Pastor Dominguez says that he is not concerned so much about the allegations against himself, as about "the infringement of the constitutional rights of our church". Victory Chapel is affiliated to a local Pentecostal union which invited Dominguez and his wife to Sakhalin in summer 2000. This Sakhalin union is itself a member of Russia's largest Pentecostal union, whose leader, Sergei Ryakhovsky, sits on the Kremlin's Council for Co-operation with Religious Organisations. This all should make registration a mere formality, but Victory Chapel has been refused religious organisation status four times since 2001. According to Dominguez, reasons cited have included his foreign citizenship and aspects of the church's charter - even though this is a carbon copy of the Pentecostal charter for union member churches.
Defined only as a "religious group" according to Russia's 1997 law on religion, Victory Chapel does not therefore enjoy the full rights of a legal personality, such as producing religious literature or visiting prisons and hospitals. Under registration rules for legal personalities adopted last year, adds Dominguez, each registration application costs 2000 roubles (470 Norwegian kroner, 60 Euros or 64 US dollars), while each signature (a minimum of ten per application) must be notarised at a cost apiece of 100 roubles (24 Norwegian kroner, 3 Euros or 3 US dollars). He does not believe the motivation for the refusals to be financial, however. When a registered local Presbyterian church recently tried to set up a satellite church on Sakhalin they were refused by the island's department of justice, Dominguez told Forum 18: "They were told that [Bishop] Daniil had said that there were to be no more churches registered on Sakhalin."
Speaking to Forum 18 on 12 March, Natalya Oreshkova of the public relations department at Sakhalin regional administration claimed that she had not read the Telemir articles. Quoted Bishop Daniil's comments about Baptists, Pentecostals, Adventists and evangelicals, she said that her administration did not regard these groups as sects: "That is just the opinion of the bishop". Victory Chapel is "just an unregistered church as far as we are concerned," she said, and recommended contacting the department of justice for further information regarding the status of its registration application.
Despite this recommendation, on 13 March a Sakhalin department of justice official refused to give Forum 18 any information by telephone concerning Victory Chapel other than the church had submitted documents for registration and been refused.
Muslims must bare head in passports
Reuters (06.03.2003)/ HRWF Int. (10.03.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net- Russia's Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by Muslim women to cover their hair for passport photographs in what rights activists say is a sign of Moscow's growing anti-Islamic stance.
"The Supreme Court rejected the complaint lodged by the Muslim women today," a spokesman told Reuters.
Devout Muslim women are required to wear a headscarf, or hijab, and cover much of their bodies as it is considered sinful for a woman to reveal her hair or skin to anyone other than her husband or immediate relatives.
Human rights groups have long accused Russia, which has 20 million Muslims in its 147 million population, of fostering anti-Islamic feelings as part of Moscow's bid to halt a separatist rebellion in the mainly Muslim province of Chechnya.
"Today's Court ruling is an egregious violation of basic human rights aimed at humiliating Muslim women. It is a slap in the face...and it is a war against Islam in general," said Geidar Zhamal of Russia's prominent Human Rights Institute.
The Interior Ministry says wearing a headscarf or any other head gear in a passport picture makes identification difficult.
"Anti-Islamic sentiment might have played a role (in the ruling)," Farid Zagidulla, the plaintiff's lawyer, told Interfax news agency, adding the women planned to appeal to the Supreme Court and could go to the European Court of Human Rights.
The women were appealing a ruling by a court in Russia's mostly Muslim province of Tatarstan that they did not have the right to wear a headscarf in passport photographs.
Moscow has linked Chechen separatism to what it calls international terrorism and has joined Washington in fighting Islamic militancy following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the October theater siege in Moscow.
Russia bans 15 religious groups
Dawn (15.02.2003)/ HRWF Int. (18.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Russia on Friday placed 15 Muslim groups on a terror blacklist, including the Al Qaeda network and two radical Chechen organizations.
The Russian supreme court upheld a request by Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov to blacklist the groups, ordering that their assets be confiscated and activities halted in Russia.
The banned groups include the Congress of Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan and the United Force of Caucasian Mujahideen, led by radical Chechen Shamil Basayev and Movladi Udugov.
Apart from Al Qaeda, the list also figures radical organizations outside Russia, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Pakistan's Lashkar-i-Taiba.
Russia has been demanding that Washington place Chechen groups on its terror blacklist, a move that would enable Moscow to present its campaign against the guerillas as part of the fight against global terrorism.
The insurgency in Chechnya is led by elected president, Aslan Maskhadov, who says he opposes terrorism, but is supported by a number of radical groups, one of which staged a dramatic hostage-taking operation at a Moscow theatre last year in which 129 people died.
Moscow Prosecutorꡯs Office continues fight against freedom of conscience
Moscow/ HRWF Int. (11.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - After nearly a years adjournment, the case filed by the Northern Administrative Circuit Prosecutors Office against the Moscow Community of Jehovah's Witnesses will resume on Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at the Golovinsky Intermunicipal (District) Court, Judge Vera K. Dubinskaya presiding. The retrial, which began in October 2001, was adjourned on April 4, 2002, when the court ordered two expert studiesa philological-linguistic study of the religious literature of Jehovah's Witnesses, and a social-psychological study on the publics opinion of the religious activity of Jehovahs Witnesses. The Community appealed this ruling, and it was reversed by the Moscow City Court on November 22, 2002.
The Prosecutors Office was unsuccessful in the original trial, when on February 23, 2001, the court, presided by Yelena Prokhorycheva, dismissed the case in full. However, on May 30, 2001, the Moscow City Court sent the case back for a retrial. This ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court of Russia, which has thus far remained silent. Having exhausted all domestic remedies in the Russian Federation, the Community filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights on December 15, 2001, later registered by the Court as No. 302/02.
In speaking on the Council of Europe country-members responsibilities, a rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on March 26, 2002, cited this ongoing court examination as an example of how the rights of a religious minority are being violated, and emphasized the need to put an end to it.
Commenting on the current situation, the Chair of the International Helsinki Group in Moscow, Lyudmila Alekseyeva stated: "Modern-day persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses has been ongoing for six years. Surely it will not take another six years before justice triumphs."
Minister: religion not to be taught in schools
The Russia Journal Daily (30.01.2003)/ HRWF Int. (04.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - MOSCOW - Russian Education Minister Vladimir Filippov told the Echo Moscow radio station Wednesday that religion should not be taught in Russias schools.
Religion should be taught in specialized schools. Only culture should be taught in mainstream schools, he added.
Since Russia is a multinational state, it would be reasonable to write a textbook that could be used to teach children about Russias different faiths Orthodox Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam, he said.
Filippov added that the Education Ministry has not officially approved the textbook, Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture.
He said that Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture could appear in some schools because until the summer of 2002 anybody could write a textbook, and any school could buy it.
A new law states that schools can now use only those textbooks that have been officially approved by Russias Education Ministry, he noted.
Putin calls for "political dialogue" with Vatican
AP (30.01.2003)/ HRWF Int. (04.02.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia "is in favor of developing a political dialogue with the Vatican," expressing hope for cooperation despite tense relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
"We are convinced that on several questions, our bilateral relations will contribute to resolving complex issues of the modern world order," Putin told the Vatican's new top representative in Russia, papal nuncio Archbishop Antonio Mennini, during a Kremlin reception for new ambassadors.
"On several questions, including the important and acute question of terrorism, our position practically coincides with the Vatican's," Putin said.
The Russian Orthodox Church, highly sensitive to what it views as obstacles to restoring its flock after decades of Soviet atheism, complains that Catholics are trying to convert people on its territory.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, has repeatedly said he will not agree to a visit by Pope John Paul II which the pontiff deeply desires unless relations improve and Catholics stop their alleged proselytizing.
The dispute escalated sharply last year after the Vatican decided to upgrade its "apostolic administrations" in Russia to full dioceses.
Five foreign-born Catholics had their Russian visas revoked or not renewed last year and Russian Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz has complained that in some regions Catholics have experienced bans on constructing new churches, and the vandalism and desecration of existing churches.
Last month, the Vatican's foreign minister summoned Russia's ambassador to the Holy See to formally complain about what he called a "true anti-Catholic campaign" in the country.
When Mennini arrived in Russia earlier this month, he said he hoped relations between Russia and the Vatican "can develop with joint trust and cooperation."
Catholics and protestants in Russia top list of national security threats
Evangelical churches listed among destructive cults
by Beverly Nickles
MOSCOW (Compass) (10.01.2003) / HRWF Int. (14.01.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Religious rights activists raised concerned voices in Russia following a December 5 news report of a government document outlining recommendations for countering "religious extremism." The document listed the Catholic Church as the number one threat to national security and Protestant churches as the number two threat.
Attorneys with the Slavic Center for Law and Justice (SCLJ) in Moscow immediately blasted the document as "blatantly incompetent and anti-constitutional." SCLJ attorneys called "especially alarming" the suggestion of "expulsion of Catholic and Protestant ministers."
The report in its final form will be presented early in 2003 at a joint session of the Security Council, State Council and Council for Relations with Religious Organizations. The 15-page draft was prepared by a working group of the State Council and co-authored by Nationalities Minister Vladimir Zorin, Chechen administration head Akhmad Kadyrov and 33 other officials.
"The officials have set down Catholics, Protestants, sectarians, and foreigners as extremists -- that is, everyone except Orthodox adherents, Buddhists, and for the time being, Jews," wrote Nadeshda Kevorkova in the Gazeta newspaper.
The draft document defined "extremists" as those who conduct the "propaganda of exclusivity, of the supremacy or inferiority of citizens according to their attitude to religion and according to what social, racial, ethnic, or linguistic group they belong." According to the officials, religious extremists promote disrespectful attitudes toward traditional religions.
The Catholic Church earned first place on the list of national security threats for allegedly attempting to proselytize Russian Orthodox priests and lay persons to Catholicism. Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, head of the Catholic Church in Russia, claims that only 500 to 600 Russians voluntarily converted to Catholicism in the past decade. In relation to the total Russian population, he called this number "a pittance."
The sheer quantitative growth of Protestant communities in Russia helped them earn second place as a security threat. The report accuses Protestants of using the "guise" of humanitarian aid to promote "self-alienation" of various population groups from the Russian government, traditions and culture.
Ranking third on the list were "foreign pseudo-religious communities" such as Jehovahs Witnesses, Moonies, Scientologists, Satanists and groups based on Eastern religious philosophy. Members of these groups were said to infiltrate government, military and law enforcement agencies to collect information and influence decisions to spread their ideology.
Islamic extremists in Russia ranked fourth on the list.
The draft report suggested the formation of a government ministry over religious organizations to handle problems of ethnic and state-religious relations. This was one of several recommendations that concern religious freedom advocates. Others include a proposed system of ethno-confessional monitoring, state support for traditional religious organizations and standards, and creation of a "single educational area."
Legally, the offense of "arousal of ethnic, radical, and religious enmity" would be elevated to the status of a "grave crime" punishable by up to six years in prison. Those who produce and disseminate materials with "extremist content" would be held criminally liable. "Hypnosis or the use of narcotics on an individual" would be banned, and authorities would require written permission from parents for minors to participate in religious activities.
Finally, the document proposes changing the federal law "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations" to hold national religious organizations liable for unlawful activity by any local entity.
During a radio interview immediately following publication of the report, Zorin appeared to deny knowledge of the document. In later interviews, he acknowledged the report, but stressed that it was intended merely as an analysis of religious extremisms development in Russia and not as a basis for government policies.
Professor Anatoly Krasikov takes the reports contents "very seriously." He said that even if its recommendations arent adopted, it indicates that the opponents of human rights have not abandoned their plans to return to a new form of totalitarianism, "this time with a flag of one religion."
A Russian Orthodox himself, Krasikov says he doesnt want to see his church "transformed into an instrument of oppression for non-Orthodox citizens of Russia." Krasikov is president of the Euro Asiatic (formerly Russian) chapter of the International Religious Liberty Association. He remains optimistic that contenders for religious liberty will win the current policy debate.
December also saw the publication of "Totalitarian Sects: The Threat of Religious Extremism," the concluding document of the International Applied Science Conference held in Ekaterinburg. Co-opting the language often used in defense of religious freedom, the document stated that "destructive cults" pose a threat to democratic freedoms in several Eastern European countries, particularly Russia. Participants in the IAS conference included federal government officials, theologians, educators and health professionals.
"Totalitarian Sects" authors attached an extensive list of organizations considered dangerous, including Satanists, Krishna Consciousness, Jehovahs Witness and Silva Mind Control. Also listed were Assemblies of God, Seventh-day Adventists, Messianic Jews (including "Jews for Jesus" groups), New Life, Word of Life, Agape Humanitarian Christian Mission, International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and Amway.
The new Russian anti-Semitism targets Muslims
by Eliahu Salpeter
Ha'aretz (08.01.2003)/ HRWF Int. (09.01.2003) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net -The slowdown in immigration from Russia has led to the formation of new, stronger Jewish communities by those who have remained. The institutionalization of religion has allowed the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidic movement to increase its activities as have Conservative and Reform organizations. The ousting of tycoons Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky has weakened the image of Jewish dominance in politics. Only the authorities' response to racist expressions has not changed.
Five main factors mold the status of Russian Jewry today, including their relations with their gentile neighbors and their ties with the government. A few of the factors have undergone very significant changes since Russian President Vladimir Putin replaced his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 1999. Other factors have changed less, or not at all.
There has been no real change in the attitude of the authorities throughout Russia to verbal or physical expressions of anti-Semitism. Despite Putin's unchallenged status in Moscow and the central institutions of the federal government, the czarist phrase "God is in heaven - the czar is a long way off" still holds. The local rulers and senior officials in many of the states of the federation behave like little kings in their own fiefdoms. There are some who try to cope with racist phenomena and with attacks on foreigners. Others, apparently the majority, ignore the situation (intentionally or otherwise) and sometimes even aid elements supporting the extremists. Thus, for example, in a few regions the armed Cossack movements are practically recognized officially by the authorities. There is more than a little anarchy in law enforcement, and the Jews are often its victims. This happens against the background of a missing tradition of respecting basic civil rights, which could set limits to racist phenomena.
The best thing about the post-Communist era for the Jews was the opening of the gates of emigration. More than a million came to Israel, and many others went to Western countries. This of course changed the face of the communities they left. Recently emigration has slowed significantly and this has accelerated the process of the reconsolidation of Jewry in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
"All the Jews" are no longer sitting on their suitcases or trying to decide whether to go or stay. It also looks as if anyone who wanted to come to Israel did so before the economic crisis in Israel. Those who decided to stay (and who wish to remain Jewish) are now hard at work creating a framework that will ensure their ethnic future, aided by worldwide Jewish organizations and the Jewish Agency. Throughout the CIS there are many Jewish schools, which also teach Hebrew; there are adult classes for Judaic studies and Jewish cultural events; and there are both secular and religious national organizations.
The connection with family members who came to Israel is certainly contributing to the Jewish identity of those left behind, but, on the other hand, the marked drop in the number of local Jews is liable to increase intermarriage. The third factor is the institutionalization of religion by the authorities, which added Judaism to the (few) religions that enjoy "recognized" status. This has helped Chabad in particular and it sends vast sums of money for the expansion of its activities. One of the expressions of the strong status of this movement is the strange fact that the state agreed to recognize two Ashkenazi chief rabbis, one who has been serving since the Soviet era and another one, from Chabad, whom the authorities have decided to favor.
The Interfax Russian news agency last week reported that "the Russian Congress of Religious Organizations and Jewish Communities" had formulated "a cultural ideology regarding the key aspects of life in our times." The declaration notes, in conservative tones, the preference of motherhood and homemaking as women's roles. It also speaks of political, cultural and social equality for women, but opposes "the trend to diminish the importance of her role as wife and mother." Concerning abortions, the declaration states that "the Bible's determination that human life is sacred from the outset contradicts the right to freedom of choice regarding the fate of the fetus."
This ideology forbids rabbis from membership in political parties and from participating in elections. Jews are to obey the state authorities and pray for their welfare. "May God bless the president, the head of the state and all Russian citizens," concludes the declaration.
Conservative and Reform Judaism are also making inroads in Russia. The Reform movement is currently putting a major organizational effort into outlying towns. The World Union for Progressive Judaism (Reform) has founded a new movement in Russia and now operates an Institute for Modern Judaic Studies in Moscow. The institute course lasts a year and its graduates become teachers of Hebrew and Judaic studies in non-Orthodox communities. According to the New York newspaper The Forward, Reform sources say that if they had the funding that Chabad has, they would be able to set up the largest network of communities and Jewish schools in Russia. The Forward also notes that Chabad sources concur that the Reform movement has "great drawing power among most of Russian Jewry," as close to 70 percent of them have mixed marriages.
Russian Jewry's status has also been affected, indirectly but still substantially, by Putin's "political wing-clipping" of tycoons in the past two years, kingpins who had made their fortunes during the accelerated privatization in the Yeltsin era. Two of the most prominent of these men, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, had also acquired important sections of Russian radio, television and print media, gaining tremendous political influence. After covert and overt confrontation with Putin, the two were forced to sell some of their communications holdings and leave Russia.
This was not an expression of anti-Semitism on Putin's part but rather the implementation of a principle the new president had laid down -that riches and economic power be separate from political power.
Cries of "the Jews control Russian capital" and "the Jews control the Russian press" were heard more and more frequently and caused discomfort among Jews both inside Russia and beyond its borders, particularly because of Berezovsky's high profile (even though he had converted to Christianity he was still viewed as a Jew) and that of Gusinsky, who was also serving as chairman of the Russian Jewish Congress.
The ousting of these two eased Jewish fears and put an end to the open involvement of oligarchs in Russian politics. Jews continue to be active in politics but as politicians (and not as businessmen). Sometimes they belong to Putin's "cheering section" which helps him with public opinion in the West, mainly among American Jewry. Putin rewards his supporters by putting in an appearance at important Jewish events.
The ousting of the Jewish oligarchs from politics and the media does not mean that Jews are no longer in the upper echelons of economic circles. The Washington Post figures that eight "clans" control 85 percent of the capital in the 64 largest private companies in Russia. Other American publications claim that three of these "families" are connected with Jewish oligarchs, including Mikhail Khodorkovskij, head of the largest oil company, and Mikhail Friedman, a banker who also has substantial holdings in the steel industry. Most of these businessmen are in Putin's "tea club" and are often invited to the Kremlin for economic policy discussions.
The last factor that affects the status of the Jews is the Russian populace's growing hostility toward Muslims from the CIS, due to the war in Chechnya. This hostility intensified in recent weeks due to the disastrous Moscow theater hostage affair. Putin takes pains to emphasize that Islam is not synonymous with terrorism, but sometimes has difficulty holding his tongue. He told a French journalist, for example, that there is now a war between Christianity and Islam. It is reasonable to assume that some of the blows meted out by thugs to Muslim passers-by in Russian towns were intended for Jewish passers-by.
"It used to be the Jews," lamented a Moscow imam to a Washington Post journalist. "Now they have all gone to Israel. Instead of the Jews, now the politicians incite the masses against the Muslims. We are the new Jews.
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