RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS
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Russia
Religion News Current News Items
Interfax-Religiia, 11 June 2010
Religious Jews are the first victims of antisemitic outbreaks, according to the conclusions of a report on antisemitism in Russia in 2009 prepared by an expert group within the Jewish community in Russia.
"The overwhelming portion of attacks and antisemitic vandalism were directed against believing Jews and places where they assemble," the leading expert of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, Semen Charnyi, a member of the expert group, said in an interview with Interfax.
On the whole, he said, the total number of attacks on Jews in Russian can be considered "quite low against the background of other forms of antisemitic activity."
S. Charnyi views the reason for this to be the fact that "it is difficult to single out Jews from the population of Russian cities on the basis of purely external indications."
He said that it has been established that in 2009 in Russia there were six attacks on Jews, nine cases of desecration of buildings occupied by Jewish organizations, and 11 instances of desecration of cemeteries and monuments to victims of the Holocaust and repression.
On the whole, in Russia in 2009 the results of attacks and confrontations on the basis of xenophobia were 82 deaths and 326 injuries.
"The overall situation in this direction (in the area of overcoming antisemitism in Russia - IF) is very disturbing and reversible", S. Charnyi thinks. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Interfax-Religiia, 15 June 2010
The Investigative Committee of the Procuracy of RF thinks that Nicholas II and his family were executed on the basis of a decision by the Ural Soviet without the sanction of the highest soviet authority in the persons of Lenin and Sverdlov.
"We do not have a single document that gives evidence that an official decision was made regarding shooting the tsarist family," Vladimir Soloviev, the senior criminal investigator of the Chief Administration of Criminal Acts of the Investigative Committee of the Procuracy, said on Tuesday in a broadcast of the radio program "Echo of Moscow."
On 15 January 2009, V. Soloviev, who was the investigator for especially important affairs of the Investigative Committee, issued an order closing the investigation of the criminal case regarding the murder of Nicholas II and members of his family.
The head of the House of Romanov, Grand Princess Maria Vladimirovna, complained about the closing of the investigation of the criminal case.
The Ural Soviet was the chief organ of soviet power in the region that included Perm, Ekaterinburg, Viatsk, Cheliabinsk, Ufa, and Orenburg provinces.
Members of the family of the last Russian emperor and his inner circle (11 persons in all) were shot on the basis of a decision by the presidium of the Ural Soviet in the night of 17 July 1918.
On 1 October 2008 the presidium of the Supreme Court of RF made the decision concerning rehabilitation of Nicholas II and members of his family.
The House of Romanov does not agree with the conclusion of the Investigative Committee that members of the tsarist family were victims of "common criminals." Representatives of the imperial family insist that the Romanovs were deprived of life in the name of the government. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Interfax-Religiia, 18 June 2010
The prosecutor of Tula province, Oleg Chernysh, filed an application in Novomoskovsk city court for declaring sermons of an Orthodox priest from the village of Ivankovo, Kimovsk district, to be extremist.
"Father Vasily's speeches were recorded on a disk titled 'Orthodoxy or death,'" Interfax was told on Friday at the provincial prosecutor's office.
In addition, it was noted at the office that the priest is the author of six videos which included such titles as "Electric chip identification," "American show," and "Coffins for Americans."
Also, the prosecutor's office issued warnings to three members of the territorial organization of Jehovah's Witnesses who were found to have the book "What does the Bible really teach?" which in on the federal list of extremist materials.
Another three residents of Tula were issued warnings for their attempts to distribute on the Internet the book "Attack of the Russian gods" that also has been declared extremist.
"In all, since the beginning of 2010 the provincial prosecutor's office has identified 545 violations of laws dealing with interethnic relations and prevention of extremism and terrorism. Seventeen cases have been filed in court and 23 persons have been brought to disciplinary account," the provincial prosecutor's office noted. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
PROSECUTOR ISSUES WARNING TO LIPETSK JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
Gorod48.ru, 15 June 2010
The prosecutor's office has warned the Lipetsk Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization about the impermissibility of violations of the law on prevention of extremist activity.
The prosecutor of the October district of Lipetsk conducted an inquiry into the activity of the local Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization. The occasion for the inquiry was information that on 1 March 2010 in the building of the so-called "Kingdom Hall," belonging to the local Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization, located on Industrial street, there was a documented instance of the study at a believers' meeting of excerpts from the book "Come and follow me," which is banned in Russia. By decision of the Rostov provincial court of 11 September 2009 and by determination of the judicial college for civic affairs of the Supreme Court of RF of 8 December 2009, this book is recognized as extremist and is included in the federal list of extremist materials.
In connection with this, the leadership of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization of Lipetsk was warned by the prosecutor's office about the impermissibility of violations of the law on prevention of extremist activity. In the event of violation, the Lipetsk Jehovah's Witnesses are threatened with administrative and criminal liability.
It should be noted that such violations of Russian legislation and ignoring of warnings from the prosecutor have led to the closing and banning of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Taganrog, Rostov province. The court found the activity of the Rostov Jehovah's Witnesses organization to be extremist. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
REPEAT INQUIRY IN VORONEZH ABOUT SIGNS OF EXTREMISM IN EXPRESSION "GOD IS DEAD."
Portal-credo.ru, 18 June 2010
The head of a Voronezh art group with the postmodernist name "The totalitarian sect of Stolen Bread," Aleksei Pakhomov, who is known under the artistic pseudonym of Andrei Chasovska, recently received a letter in which the Center for Combating Extremism informed him that "so far expert analysis has not given an answer to the question whether the expression 'God is dead' is extremist," but a specialized subdivision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs intends to petition before the provincial prosecutor for a renewed analysis of the expression. Aleksei Pakhomov described this in a conversation with a Portal-credo.ru correspondent.
For the record: the expression "God is dead" is, on one hand, a motto of the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and on the other hand, a component of Christian notions established by the text of the New Testament.
Shortly before Easter of this year, searches were conducted in the apartments of participants of the Voronezh art group "Totalitarian sect of Stolen Bread," that comprises about ten persons. At the time of the searches, from the artists were confiscated creative works, tapes, books, and computers. The press service of the provincial administration of internal affairs distributed a report about the discovery of a "totalitarian sect" in which the art group was called a "totalitarian sect of an anarchist and satanic variety."
Police officers explained the interest in the activity of the art group as a search for participants in a pogrom in one of the city's cemeteries that occurred in the autumn of 2006. Police also suggested that Pakhomov admit to desecration of the oldest church of Voronezh, the Admiralty church of the Dormition, with satanic symbols and inscriptions of corresponding contents.
The art group came under police scrutiny before Easter of 2009, when in one of the prominent places of the city its members hung a homemade banner saying "Sleep well. God is dead," and posted a similar video on the Internet. The police considered the banner antichristian and the provider removed the video from the site.
As Andrei Pakhomov noted in the interview with the Portal-credo.ru correspondent, although a criminal case against him on the basis of article 282 has not been opened, "recent events involving the artist Lena Kheidz and the curator of the 'BewareÑReligion!' exhibit, Erofeev, do not project a pleasant course." (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Portal-credo.ru, 10 June 2010
The European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) declared illegal the decision of the Russian court to dissolve the religious congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow and ordered Russia to pay 70,000 euros to victims, a communiqué of the court says, according to a report by RIA Novosti.
The suit for prohibition of the activity of the Jehovah's Witnesses' organization was submitted by the nongorvernental organization "Committee of Salvation" in 1995. In March 2004 the Golovin district court of Moscow disbanded the religious congregation and forbade its activity. The organization was found guilty, in particular, of enticing minor children into the religious organization against their will and without parental permission, inciting believers to break away from their families in violation of the rights and freedoms of citizens, infringing on their health in prompting them to commit suicide and to refuse medical care on the basis of religious principles, and persuading citizens not to fulfill civic duties.
The organization filed suit in the Strasbourg court back in October 2001, and on 10 June 2010 the court officially published its verdict.
The decision of the ECHR says: "After studying in detail the arguments of the Russian authorities, the Court found that the decision regarding the dissolution was not founded on the necessary factual base. The authorities did not present the appropriate and sufficient evidence proving that the community forced people to break away from their families, infringed on the rights of its members or third parties, incited adepts to commit suicide or refuse medical treatment, infringed the rights of parents who were not members of the congregation or their children or prompted its members not to fulfill their legal obligations."
The court ruled that the dissolution of the community was an "excessively stern and disproportionate measure with respect to the legal goal pursued by the authorities." Now the Russian authorities are obliged to pay the plaintiffs 20,000 euros for moral damages and 50,000 euros for legal costs.
The decision of the Strasbourg court will take effect if, in the course of three months, the sides do not file a request to submit the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR which, in its turn, could make a different decision.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are an international religious organization. According to the organization's own accounting, in August 2009 it comprised 7 million persons. (tr. by PDS, posted 16 June 2010)
DEFENSE OF THE WITNESSES
Strasbourg court found unjustified the accusations of Russian Justice against Jehovah's Witnesses and called for complete restoration of their legal status in Moscow
by Alexander Soldatov
Portal-credo.ru, 11 June 2010
On the day after the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg issued its decision in the case of "Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses v. Russian federation," 11 June, a press conference was held in the capital's Independent Press Center devoted to this historic event. It was entitled "Will the European Court for Human Rights be able to protect freedom of conscience in Russia?" It was conducted by a representative of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, Aleksei Nazarychev, and an attorney of the Inter-regional College of Advocates of Moscow, Arli Chimirov, who were joined somewhat later by the head of the Department for Defense of Freedom of Conscience of the staff of the plenipotentiary for human rights in the Russian federation, Professor Mikhail Odintsov. Anatoly Pchelintsev and Roman Maranov, staff members of the Slavic Legal Center who had been announced in the press release as participants, did not show up at the press conference for unknown reasons.
In his opening statement Aleksei Nazarychev summarized the process which in various forms and variations had been drawn out from 1996. It was at that time that a certain "Committee for Salvation of Youth" (now disbanded), which had been organized by parents of adult citizens "who had departed into sects," with the active support of several priests of RPTsMP, began urgently demanding from various state agencies the "liquidation" of JW and, in the end, managed to get the review of this question in court. The process was quite painful. At first the prosecutor of the Northern Administrative district of Moscow in the course of conducting four successive inquiries did not find any indications of crimes in the activity of Moscow JW, but each time the verdict favorable to the "sectarians" was countermanded by the city prosecutor's office. Courts of higher instances twice overturned decisions by the Golovin district court of Moscow that were unfavorable to the JW. The first decision for "liquidation and prohibition of the activity" of the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow was published by the court in 2001. At that time the "prohibited ones" sent an appeal to ECHR, which was reviewed there for almost nine years. The judicial procedure of liquidation was completed in 2004.
"This trial must be viewed as a revival of persecution of religion in contemporary Russia," Nazarychev emphasized, citing the authoritative expert opinion of the head of the Moscow Helsinki group, Liudmila Alekseeva, who recalls clearly the repressions of the soviet authorities against JW that lasted until 1990. In 1996 the adherents of this religious organization, who had been subjected to political repressions in USSR, were officially rehabilitated and received the appropriate status with various privileges. Formally they have remained respected victims of illegal repressions even to this day, but the current "pragmatic" government has not paid attention to such "formality," when one is talking about the "salvation of the state."
Commenting upon the ECHR decision itself, Aleksei Nazarychev noted its detail and logical validity. The court connected its conclusions not only to existing international and Russian laws, but also to the general base of precedents and to the "achievements in the area of freedom of conscience throughout the history of humanity." "Obedience of Jehovah's Witnesses to the law is their biblical position," the representative of the Administrative Center stressed, taking into account at the same time the inevitability of conflicts with a state whose laws and practice contradict biblical laws or simply natural human laws. He said that interference by the state into the sphere of private life, especially into the sphere of citizens' choice of religious convictions, is a clear indication of the totalitarian nature of such a state. Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in our country cannot be represented as a "dispute of economic entities," as is practiced with respect to some other persecuted confessions. They do not wholesale down-jackets, they do not deal in real estate, and they do not create commercial banks. The only form of "economic activity" they conduct is distribution of literature.
The trial in the Golovin court from 1999 to 2004, whose results have now been overturned by ECHR, launched illegal persecutions of Jehovah's Witnesses throughout Russia; literature has been taken from them, their worship services have been disrupted, buildings have been set on fire, they have been beaten, arrested, and attacked for no reasons other than religious ones. "We have witnessed extreme forms of intolerance and religious persecution," Aleksei Nazarychev said. "The decision of ECHR will help to protect the rights of believers throughout Russia."
The ECHR's actual decision was presented to the press conference by attorney Arli Chimiriv, who represented the JW interests. The original of the decision in English was distributed to those present, but a complete Russian translation still does not exist. The argumentative portion of the decision comprises 212 points and the conclusion has seven. The panel of judges that reviewed the case, under the chairmanship of Khristos Rozakis, included judges from Russia and Azerbaijan. As typical, the decision in favor of the Jehovah's Witnesses was unanimous.
The European court found that with respect to the Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses there were violations of article 6 (point 1), 9, 11, and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, signed by Russia. These violations were expressed in the liquidation of the congregation of believers, prohibition of its activity, refusal to reregister it, and the extremely protracted judicial investigation of the liquidation case. The court required the Russian federation to pay Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses, within three months, 20,000 euros as compensation for moral damages and 50,000 euros as compensation for legal costs and expenses. The real total of these expenses, according to the calculations of Jehovah's Witnesses, was almost 250,000 euros (besides the attorneys from Russia their interests were represented in ECHR by attorneys from Great Britain and Canada). They were completely satisfied, however, with the decision, because it contains an authoritative rebuttal of the stereotypes about the harm caused to people by "Jehovist sectarians." The European court rejected all accusations of the Golovin court against Jehovah's Witnesses: refusal of blood transfusions was acknowledged to be a permissible form of patient choice of treatment; claims about the truth of their religion and attempts to propagate it actively are characteristic of practically all confessions; instances of deliberate breaking up of families were not proven. Of the approximately 10,000 Muscovite Jehovah's Witnesses families, family breakdown occurred in only 7 cases, which is significantly less than the average of the Russian population.
According to the attorney, ECHR took into account the entire absence in the case issued by the Golovin court of any kind of evidence. "Some people think that the European court made its decision contrary to the interests of Russia," Chimirov stated. In his opinion, the court, which included Russian judges in its membership, had no such intentions. "A great deal of time was devoted to trying to reach a peaceful settlement so that the sides could come to agreement. The court's tasks was to apply standards in the area of human rights." Arli Chimirov also pointed to the importance of defining the concepts of "evangelistic activity," "impermissible proselytism," "control of consciousness," and several other ideas, which entered into the the determination by ECHR of the JW case. The attorney announced a round table involving all attorneys who represented the Witnesses in Strasbourg, although the exact date has not been determined. Chimirov predicted that Russia will not file an appeal in the Grand Chamber of ECHR and that the Russian agencies will take about a year to fulfill the decision.
Professor Mikhail Odintsov, who is a renown scholar of religion who in the past spent many years as a staff member of the Council for Religious Affairs and now is engaged in defending believers in the office of the plenipotentiary for human rights, mentioned that ECHR has made a total of six decisions regarding appeals from religious organizations in Russia. Russian legislation regarding religious organizations is no worse than the best examples in the world, the professor admitted, but in our country "the principle of a legal approach to the resolution of conflict situations has been forgotten." Mikhail Odintsov considers that the Russian federation will completely fulfill the decision of ECHR and will restore the legal rights of the JW congregation in the capital. In the report of the plenipotentiary for human rights for the year 2009, no less than a page was devoted to the illegal persecutions of JW, but, according to Odintsov's information, one can still meet judges and prosecutors who will defend the rights of this religious organization.
Answering journalists' questions, representatives of the Witnesses made a brief survey of the main "sore points" of their organization in Russia. It seems that the most "painful" of these is the southern federal district, where, in particular, recently a JW house of worship was set on fire in Nartkala. In Krasnodar there is operating the "Southern Center of Forensic Expert Analysis," which consistently draws the most negative conclusions about the JW literature, arguing, for example, that Lev Tolstoy quotations incite extremism because the late count, as is known, "was an enemy of the Orthodox church." To be sure, Attorney Chimirov thinks, the center, which had been fanning interconfessional strife in this troubled region, has "cooled down" its activity. There now are hundreds of cases connected to Jehovah's Witnesses in various Russian courts, and another four appeals are awaiting review in Strasbourg. The Jehovah's Witnesses are preparing a fifth, against the decision of a court in Gorno-Altaisk "finding literature extremist." (tr. by PDS, posted 16 June 2010)
Russia Religion News Current News Items
If material is quoted, please give credit to the publication from which it came.
Antisemitic events in 2009 in Russia
VICTIMS OF ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS IN RUSSIA MAINLY RELIGIOUS JEWSÑEXPERTInterfax-Religiia, 11 June 2010
Religious Jews are the first victims of antisemitic outbreaks, according to the conclusions of a report on antisemitism in Russia in 2009 prepared by an expert group within the Jewish community in Russia.
"The overwhelming portion of attacks and antisemitic vandalism were directed against believing Jews and places where they assemble," the leading expert of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, Semen Charnyi, a member of the expert group, said in an interview with Interfax.
On the whole, he said, the total number of attacks on Jews in Russian can be considered "quite low against the background of other forms of antisemitic activity."
S. Charnyi views the reason for this to be the fact that "it is difficult to single out Jews from the population of Russian cities on the basis of purely external indications."
He said that it has been established that in 2009 in Russia there were six attacks on Jews, nine cases of desecration of buildings occupied by Jewish organizations, and 11 instances of desecration of cemeteries and monuments to victims of the Holocaust and repression.
On the whole, in Russia in 2009 the results of attacks and confrontations on the basis of xenophobia were 82 deaths and 326 injuries.
"The overall situation in this direction (in the area of overcoming antisemitism in Russia - IF) is very disturbing and reversible", S. Charnyi thinks. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Lenin did not approve murder of last tsar
NICHOLAS II EXECUTED WITHOUT SANCTION OF LENIN AND SVERDLOVInterfax-Religiia, 15 June 2010
The Investigative Committee of the Procuracy of RF thinks that Nicholas II and his family were executed on the basis of a decision by the Ural Soviet without the sanction of the highest soviet authority in the persons of Lenin and Sverdlov.
"We do not have a single document that gives evidence that an official decision was made regarding shooting the tsarist family," Vladimir Soloviev, the senior criminal investigator of the Chief Administration of Criminal Acts of the Investigative Committee of the Procuracy, said on Tuesday in a broadcast of the radio program "Echo of Moscow."
On 15 January 2009, V. Soloviev, who was the investigator for especially important affairs of the Investigative Committee, issued an order closing the investigation of the criminal case regarding the murder of Nicholas II and members of his family.
The head of the House of Romanov, Grand Princess Maria Vladimirovna, complained about the closing of the investigation of the criminal case.
The Ural Soviet was the chief organ of soviet power in the region that included Perm, Ekaterinburg, Viatsk, Cheliabinsk, Ufa, and Orenburg provinces.
Members of the family of the last Russian emperor and his inner circle (11 persons in all) were shot on the basis of a decision by the presidium of the Ural Soviet in the night of 17 July 1918.
On 1 October 2008 the presidium of the Supreme Court of RF made the decision concerning rehabilitation of Nicholas II and members of his family.
The House of Romanov does not agree with the conclusion of the Investigative Committee that members of the tsarist family were victims of "common criminals." Representatives of the imperial family insist that the Romanovs were deprived of life in the name of the government. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Orthodox and Jehovah's Witnesses alike declared extremist
TULA PROSECUTOR DEMANDS RECOGNIZING PRIEST EXTREMISTInterfax-Religiia, 18 June 2010
The prosecutor of Tula province, Oleg Chernysh, filed an application in Novomoskovsk city court for declaring sermons of an Orthodox priest from the village of Ivankovo, Kimovsk district, to be extremist.
"Father Vasily's speeches were recorded on a disk titled 'Orthodoxy or death,'" Interfax was told on Friday at the provincial prosecutor's office.
In addition, it was noted at the office that the priest is the author of six videos which included such titles as "Electric chip identification," "American show," and "Coffins for Americans."
Also, the prosecutor's office issued warnings to three members of the territorial organization of Jehovah's Witnesses who were found to have the book "What does the Bible really teach?" which in on the federal list of extremist materials.
Another three residents of Tula were issued warnings for their attempts to distribute on the Internet the book "Attack of the Russian gods" that also has been declared extremist.
"In all, since the beginning of 2010 the provincial prosecutor's office has identified 545 violations of laws dealing with interethnic relations and prevention of extremism and terrorism. Seventeen cases have been filed in court and 23 persons have been brought to disciplinary account," the provincial prosecutor's office noted. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
PROSECUTOR ISSUES WARNING TO LIPETSK JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
Gorod48.ru, 15 June 2010
The prosecutor's office has warned the Lipetsk Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization about the impermissibility of violations of the law on prevention of extremist activity.
The prosecutor of the October district of Lipetsk conducted an inquiry into the activity of the local Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization. The occasion for the inquiry was information that on 1 March 2010 in the building of the so-called "Kingdom Hall," belonging to the local Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization, located on Industrial street, there was a documented instance of the study at a believers' meeting of excerpts from the book "Come and follow me," which is banned in Russia. By decision of the Rostov provincial court of 11 September 2009 and by determination of the judicial college for civic affairs of the Supreme Court of RF of 8 December 2009, this book is recognized as extremist and is included in the federal list of extremist materials.
In connection with this, the leadership of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization of Lipetsk was warned by the prosecutor's office about the impermissibility of violations of the law on prevention of extremist activity. In the event of violation, the Lipetsk Jehovah's Witnesses are threatened with administrative and criminal liability.
It should be noted that such violations of Russian legislation and ignoring of warnings from the prosecutor have led to the closing and banning of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Taganrog, Rostov province. The court found the activity of the Rostov Jehovah's Witnesses organization to be extremist. (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
REPEAT INQUIRY IN VORONEZH ABOUT SIGNS OF EXTREMISM IN EXPRESSION "GOD IS DEAD."
Portal-credo.ru, 18 June 2010
The head of a Voronezh art group with the postmodernist name "The totalitarian sect of Stolen Bread," Aleksei Pakhomov, who is known under the artistic pseudonym of Andrei Chasovska, recently received a letter in which the Center for Combating Extremism informed him that "so far expert analysis has not given an answer to the question whether the expression 'God is dead' is extremist," but a specialized subdivision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs intends to petition before the provincial prosecutor for a renewed analysis of the expression. Aleksei Pakhomov described this in a conversation with a Portal-credo.ru correspondent.
For the record: the expression "God is dead" is, on one hand, a motto of the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and on the other hand, a component of Christian notions established by the text of the New Testament.
Shortly before Easter of this year, searches were conducted in the apartments of participants of the Voronezh art group "Totalitarian sect of Stolen Bread," that comprises about ten persons. At the time of the searches, from the artists were confiscated creative works, tapes, books, and computers. The press service of the provincial administration of internal affairs distributed a report about the discovery of a "totalitarian sect" in which the art group was called a "totalitarian sect of an anarchist and satanic variety."
Police officers explained the interest in the activity of the art group as a search for participants in a pogrom in one of the city's cemeteries that occurred in the autumn of 2006. Police also suggested that Pakhomov admit to desecration of the oldest church of Voronezh, the Admiralty church of the Dormition, with satanic symbols and inscriptions of corresponding contents.
The art group came under police scrutiny before Easter of 2009, when in one of the prominent places of the city its members hung a homemade banner saying "Sleep well. God is dead," and posted a similar video on the Internet. The police considered the banner antichristian and the provider removed the video from the site.
As Andrei Pakhomov noted in the interview with the Portal-credo.ru correspondent, although a criminal case against him on the basis of article 282 has not been opened, "recent events involving the artist Lena Kheidz and the curator of the 'BewareÑReligion!' exhibit, Erofeev, do not project a pleasant course." (tr. by PDS, posted 18 June 2010)
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses defended by European court
EUROPEAN COURT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS FINDS DISSOLUTION OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES' CONGREGATION IN MOSCOW ILLEGALPortal-credo.ru, 10 June 2010
The European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) declared illegal the decision of the Russian court to dissolve the religious congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow and ordered Russia to pay 70,000 euros to victims, a communiqué of the court says, according to a report by RIA Novosti.
The suit for prohibition of the activity of the Jehovah's Witnesses' organization was submitted by the nongorvernental organization "Committee of Salvation" in 1995. In March 2004 the Golovin district court of Moscow disbanded the religious congregation and forbade its activity. The organization was found guilty, in particular, of enticing minor children into the religious organization against their will and without parental permission, inciting believers to break away from their families in violation of the rights and freedoms of citizens, infringing on their health in prompting them to commit suicide and to refuse medical care on the basis of religious principles, and persuading citizens not to fulfill civic duties.
The organization filed suit in the Strasbourg court back in October 2001, and on 10 June 2010 the court officially published its verdict.
The decision of the ECHR says: "After studying in detail the arguments of the Russian authorities, the Court found that the decision regarding the dissolution was not founded on the necessary factual base. The authorities did not present the appropriate and sufficient evidence proving that the community forced people to break away from their families, infringed on the rights of its members or third parties, incited adepts to commit suicide or refuse medical treatment, infringed the rights of parents who were not members of the congregation or their children or prompted its members not to fulfill their legal obligations."
The court ruled that the dissolution of the community was an "excessively stern and disproportionate measure with respect to the legal goal pursued by the authorities." Now the Russian authorities are obliged to pay the plaintiffs 20,000 euros for moral damages and 50,000 euros for legal costs.
The decision of the Strasbourg court will take effect if, in the course of three months, the sides do not file a request to submit the case to the Grand Chamber of the ECHR which, in its turn, could make a different decision.
The Jehovah's Witnesses are an international religious organization. According to the organization's own accounting, in August 2009 it comprised 7 million persons. (tr. by PDS, posted 16 June 2010)
DEFENSE OF THE WITNESSES
Strasbourg court found unjustified the accusations of Russian Justice against Jehovah's Witnesses and called for complete restoration of their legal status in Moscow
by Alexander Soldatov
Portal-credo.ru, 11 June 2010
On the day after the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg issued its decision in the case of "Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses v. Russian federation," 11 June, a press conference was held in the capital's Independent Press Center devoted to this historic event. It was entitled "Will the European Court for Human Rights be able to protect freedom of conscience in Russia?" It was conducted by a representative of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, Aleksei Nazarychev, and an attorney of the Inter-regional College of Advocates of Moscow, Arli Chimirov, who were joined somewhat later by the head of the Department for Defense of Freedom of Conscience of the staff of the plenipotentiary for human rights in the Russian federation, Professor Mikhail Odintsov. Anatoly Pchelintsev and Roman Maranov, staff members of the Slavic Legal Center who had been announced in the press release as participants, did not show up at the press conference for unknown reasons.
In his opening statement Aleksei Nazarychev summarized the process which in various forms and variations had been drawn out from 1996. It was at that time that a certain "Committee for Salvation of Youth" (now disbanded), which had been organized by parents of adult citizens "who had departed into sects," with the active support of several priests of RPTsMP, began urgently demanding from various state agencies the "liquidation" of JW and, in the end, managed to get the review of this question in court. The process was quite painful. At first the prosecutor of the Northern Administrative district of Moscow in the course of conducting four successive inquiries did not find any indications of crimes in the activity of Moscow JW, but each time the verdict favorable to the "sectarians" was countermanded by the city prosecutor's office. Courts of higher instances twice overturned decisions by the Golovin district court of Moscow that were unfavorable to the JW. The first decision for "liquidation and prohibition of the activity" of the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow was published by the court in 2001. At that time the "prohibited ones" sent an appeal to ECHR, which was reviewed there for almost nine years. The judicial procedure of liquidation was completed in 2004.
"This trial must be viewed as a revival of persecution of religion in contemporary Russia," Nazarychev emphasized, citing the authoritative expert opinion of the head of the Moscow Helsinki group, Liudmila Alekseeva, who recalls clearly the repressions of the soviet authorities against JW that lasted until 1990. In 1996 the adherents of this religious organization, who had been subjected to political repressions in USSR, were officially rehabilitated and received the appropriate status with various privileges. Formally they have remained respected victims of illegal repressions even to this day, but the current "pragmatic" government has not paid attention to such "formality," when one is talking about the "salvation of the state."
Commenting upon the ECHR decision itself, Aleksei Nazarychev noted its detail and logical validity. The court connected its conclusions not only to existing international and Russian laws, but also to the general base of precedents and to the "achievements in the area of freedom of conscience throughout the history of humanity." "Obedience of Jehovah's Witnesses to the law is their biblical position," the representative of the Administrative Center stressed, taking into account at the same time the inevitability of conflicts with a state whose laws and practice contradict biblical laws or simply natural human laws. He said that interference by the state into the sphere of private life, especially into the sphere of citizens' choice of religious convictions, is a clear indication of the totalitarian nature of such a state. Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in our country cannot be represented as a "dispute of economic entities," as is practiced with respect to some other persecuted confessions. They do not wholesale down-jackets, they do not deal in real estate, and they do not create commercial banks. The only form of "economic activity" they conduct is distribution of literature.
The trial in the Golovin court from 1999 to 2004, whose results have now been overturned by ECHR, launched illegal persecutions of Jehovah's Witnesses throughout Russia; literature has been taken from them, their worship services have been disrupted, buildings have been set on fire, they have been beaten, arrested, and attacked for no reasons other than religious ones. "We have witnessed extreme forms of intolerance and religious persecution," Aleksei Nazarychev said. "The decision of ECHR will help to protect the rights of believers throughout Russia."
The ECHR's actual decision was presented to the press conference by attorney Arli Chimiriv, who represented the JW interests. The original of the decision in English was distributed to those present, but a complete Russian translation still does not exist. The argumentative portion of the decision comprises 212 points and the conclusion has seven. The panel of judges that reviewed the case, under the chairmanship of Khristos Rozakis, included judges from Russia and Azerbaijan. As typical, the decision in favor of the Jehovah's Witnesses was unanimous.
The European court found that with respect to the Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses there were violations of article 6 (point 1), 9, 11, and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, signed by Russia. These violations were expressed in the liquidation of the congregation of believers, prohibition of its activity, refusal to reregister it, and the extremely protracted judicial investigation of the liquidation case. The court required the Russian federation to pay Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses, within three months, 20,000 euros as compensation for moral damages and 50,000 euros as compensation for legal costs and expenses. The real total of these expenses, according to the calculations of Jehovah's Witnesses, was almost 250,000 euros (besides the attorneys from Russia their interests were represented in ECHR by attorneys from Great Britain and Canada). They were completely satisfied, however, with the decision, because it contains an authoritative rebuttal of the stereotypes about the harm caused to people by "Jehovist sectarians." The European court rejected all accusations of the Golovin court against Jehovah's Witnesses: refusal of blood transfusions was acknowledged to be a permissible form of patient choice of treatment; claims about the truth of their religion and attempts to propagate it actively are characteristic of practically all confessions; instances of deliberate breaking up of families were not proven. Of the approximately 10,000 Muscovite Jehovah's Witnesses families, family breakdown occurred in only 7 cases, which is significantly less than the average of the Russian population.
According to the attorney, ECHR took into account the entire absence in the case issued by the Golovin court of any kind of evidence. "Some people think that the European court made its decision contrary to the interests of Russia," Chimirov stated. In his opinion, the court, which included Russian judges in its membership, had no such intentions. "A great deal of time was devoted to trying to reach a peaceful settlement so that the sides could come to agreement. The court's tasks was to apply standards in the area of human rights." Arli Chimirov also pointed to the importance of defining the concepts of "evangelistic activity," "impermissible proselytism," "control of consciousness," and several other ideas, which entered into the the determination by ECHR of the JW case. The attorney announced a round table involving all attorneys who represented the Witnesses in Strasbourg, although the exact date has not been determined. Chimirov predicted that Russia will not file an appeal in the Grand Chamber of ECHR and that the Russian agencies will take about a year to fulfill the decision.
Professor Mikhail Odintsov, who is a renown scholar of religion who in the past spent many years as a staff member of the Council for Religious Affairs and now is engaged in defending believers in the office of the plenipotentiary for human rights, mentioned that ECHR has made a total of six decisions regarding appeals from religious organizations in Russia. Russian legislation regarding religious organizations is no worse than the best examples in the world, the professor admitted, but in our country "the principle of a legal approach to the resolution of conflict situations has been forgotten." Mikhail Odintsov considers that the Russian federation will completely fulfill the decision of ECHR and will restore the legal rights of the JW congregation in the capital. In the report of the plenipotentiary for human rights for the year 2009, no less than a page was devoted to the illegal persecutions of JW, but, according to Odintsov's information, one can still meet judges and prosecutors who will defend the rights of this religious organization.
Answering journalists' questions, representatives of the Witnesses made a brief survey of the main "sore points" of their organization in Russia. It seems that the most "painful" of these is the southern federal district, where, in particular, recently a JW house of worship was set on fire in Nartkala. In Krasnodar there is operating the "Southern Center of Forensic Expert Analysis," which consistently draws the most negative conclusions about the JW literature, arguing, for example, that Lev Tolstoy quotations incite extremism because the late count, as is known, "was an enemy of the Orthodox church." To be sure, Attorney Chimirov thinks, the center, which had been fanning interconfessional strife in this troubled region, has "cooled down" its activity. There now are hundreds of cases connected to Jehovah's Witnesses in various Russian courts, and another four appeals are awaiting review in Strasbourg. The Jehovah's Witnesses are preparing a fifth, against the decision of a court in Gorno-Altaisk "finding literature extremist." (tr. by PDS, posted 16 June 2010)
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