RIGHTS ADVOCATES COLLECTED FACTS OF RELIGIOUS PERSECTION IN OCCUPIED DONBASS
Institute of Religious Liberty, 8 May 2015
A report, "When God Becomes the Weapon: Persecution Based on Religious Beliefs in the Armed Conflict in Eastern Ukraine," includes facts and evidence from victims and eyewitnesses of religiously motivated persecution, which has been carried out by militant separatists during the armed conflict in the east of Ukraine.
A detailed analysis of the religious situation in the occupied Donbass was prepared by the International Partnership for Human Rights (Brussels) along with the rights advocacy organization Center of Civil Liberties (Kiev) and with the help of the Institute of Religious Freedom (Kiev).
The war in the east of Ukraine has already carried off more than 6,000 lives and around a million persons have been forced to abandon their homes. Many of them fled because in the opinion of pro-Russian militants any manifestation or covert sign of pro-Ukrainian political views was sufficient reason for their arrest or even murder. Some left the Donbass because of damaged housing or the danger of armed actions.
However there also is another group of people who are saving themselves from tyranny and bloody persecution by the self-proclaimed "republics." These are the people who have suffered or are being subjected up to now to persecution for their religious convictions.
Illegal armed formations have openly declared their adherence to Moscow Orthodoxy and the start of a "crusade" in the Donbass.
Separatists have appropriated church property, they have kidnapped and tried to kill clergy and parishioners, and they forbid any religious practice other than the Orthodoxy of the Moscow patriarchate and some other exceptions.
The report of the rights advocates is devoted to targeted persecution of religious communities in occupied territories of eastern Ukraine and is, thus far, published only in English. After all, its authors are convinced that, despite a relative awareness about the existence of problems among Ukrainians, the world knows very little about the persecution of religious communities on the territories of the Donbass that have been overtaken by war.
The document is accessible for study and distribution at this link: http://www.irs.in.ua/files/publications/2015.04_Report_Religious_persecution_in_occupied_Donbas_eng.pdf
(tr. by PDS, posted 11 May 2015)
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