RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


 

 

Russian newspaper alarmed about new religion law

LIFE SIMPLIFIED FOR RUSSIAN SECTS

Appeal of Scientologists to ECHR is reason for adopting new law

by Alexander Chausov

Vzgliad, 6 July 2015

 

Without noise and dust, a new law was adopted in Russia that gives to sects, totalitarian cults, and small religious groups of any degree of exoticism the opportunity for official state registration. In effect, the law was adopted under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled that the rights of Scientologists are being infringed in the RF. But is this law as bad as it seems on first glance?

 

Late last week, the State Duma adopted, without special informational noise, immediately upon second and third readings, a draft law that has been gathering dust for a long time, which eases the procedure for registration of new religious associations. Previously the so-called "fifteen-year rule" was in effect on the territory of the RF, which meant that a religious group may receive state registration only after providing a document that confirms its existence for a period of fifteen or more years. According to the new law, religious groups may be registered on the very next day after their creation, by presenting written notification to territorial agencies of executive power.

 

However, a number of restrictions have still been established for such organizations that have arisen recently. For example, for a period of the next ten years after registration they will not be able to create educational institutions, to found news media, to have within themselves the representation of a foreign religious organization, and to invite foreigners for engaging in professional activity, including preaching and religious activity. Also in the course of that period local religious organizations will not be able to conduct religious rituals in treatment or prevention and hospital facilities, prisons, orphanages, or nursing homes for the elderly and disabled.

 

There is yet another important qualification: the restrictions apply to groups that have not been previously registered in a centralized religious structure. But about this nuance later—first about the preliminaries.

 

Another round of disputes over new religious associations, leading to the appearance of the law, began on 10 March 2010 in connection with a ruling of the European Court for Human Rights in the case of the Scientologists. In response to a declaration of congregations of the church of Scientology and the Jehovah's Witnesses, the ECHR found that "the fifteen-year rule does not comport with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Basic Liberties," and it required Russia to cease refusing registration of religious organizations because of noncompliance with this requirement. After this, the State Duma standing Committee for Affairs of Public Associations and Religious Organizations recommended the adoption on first reading of the government's draft law, which substantially simplified the registration of religious organizations.

 

However, the first reading of the draft law occurred only four years later, in October 2014. But the question of the abolition of the "fifteen-year rule" was raised several times even before that. In 2013, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin spoke out on this topic, declaring that "the draft law for simplifying registration of religious organizations should be subject to public discussion." This very "public discussion" in whatever form, we now understand, did not occur. The law proceeded quietly and it was written about in narrowly specialized or sectological or second-rank news media. Its reading in the duma also proceeded uniquely: between the first and the second-third readings more than eight months passed.

 

Meanwhile, back in 2014 the draft of the law evoked serious concern among several deputies. Thus, Mikhail Emelianov wanted "to pose serious questions to the authors of the draft law, especially the government of the RF, about whether this is a matter of legalization of sects." "I recall clearly how in the 1990s in Russia religious sects led by living gods blossomed like a dusty flower," he declared. In the deputy's opinion, liberalization of the religious legislation could lead to a repetition of such phenomena.

 

To be sure, at the time of the first reading, the law established the most minimal framework. For example, unlike the final version, newly registered religious groups were able to conduct educational activity which was not officially viewed as properly educational. That is, the law was much more liberal. Parallel with an antisectarian initiative, a member of the presidential Council for Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, the chairman of the coordinating council of the Union of Volunteers of Russia, Yana Lantratova, spoke out. She said regarding the draft law "On missionary activity," whose essence was that "street evangelism," which new religious organizations love so much, now should be completely voluntary on the part of those at whom the mission is aimed. Legislative standards like that have already been adopted in a number of regions of the RF, for example, in Belgorod and Novgorod provinces.

 

There is yet another important nuance: the very reservation about the centralized structure and associations not formally members of it. The point is that in Russia, centralized religious structures virtually do not exist juridically. Especially if this pertains to totalitarian cults and sects as they are defined by the researcher of the phenomenon Alexander Dvorkin. Simply put, the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city of Luga of Leningrad province is juridically entirely different from the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in the city of Kaluga. And therefore when, by judicial decision, registration is rescinded from or a ban is placed on the activity of a congregation of Mormons or Scientologists in one of the regions of the RF, this in no way affects other regions and the activity of local Scientologists and Mormons. Moreover, this does not affect neighboring congregations of the same religious confession and the same religious system in one and the same city. Two congregations of neocharismatics of the "Signpost of Faith" or "Church of Christ," even if they are in neighboring buildings, are two entirely different religious organizations.

 

Incidentally, we are talking about yet another soviet legislative practice which has been retained until now and pertains not only to sects but to traditional confessions. Each Orthodox parish, each Muslim and Jewish community, and each Buddhist sangha is a separate juridical person and separate religious structure. Such a state of affairs is improper, since legal reality does not reflect objective reality. The current legislative act moves toward a definite structuring. And that is not so categorically bad.

 

Something else is bad. Under the current setup there really will arise a multiplicity of fly-by-night sects. There will even be entrepreneurs who register their tavern as the "church of smokers on the premises," and the charter will say something like "to buy beer and snacks is the immediate duty of the adept of the cult." And then just try to prove that they are petty businessmen and not followers of the "Bavarian Bacchus," for example. But this is from the ranks of exotica.

 

With the liberal draft law the government supposedly is pacifying the ECHR (which within the bounds of the rhetoric of recent months in the Yukos case appears ambivalent), and it is alarming domestic sectologists (which for the government is not very good since a sectologist is outside politics), but paradoxically it is making an entirely literate step, since in its essential part the law simply will not work out. The leadership of sectarian structures are not idiots. They understand quite well that an unregistered congregation operates much more freely than a juridical person. Especially within the framework of a centralized structure, which now can be torn up by the roots because of violation by an individual cell in Luga or Kaluga.

 

Another matter yet is the registration of truly new sects at the level of individual groups. There really could be problems here. They want land, premises, and private communal property. They can be entrenched and they will do that. But there is a chance that many of these groups will suffer because of ignorance of Russian legislation. For example, the law on advertising or the law on NGOs. They often will suffer even if they are not registered. Law enforcement agencies deal only with individual people and they do not shut down a whole organization, since if there is no organization juridically then it does not exist for law enforcement agencies also. In this way everything may be changed in an illiberal direction for nontraditional religious structures.

 

It is clear that new, judicially formulated religious organizations will roll out a PR campaign, emphasizing that now they are officially recognized by the state. Potentially this will lengthen the list of victims of cults and local sects. But here is what is interesting: now Senator Kosachev is drawing up a "patriotic stop-list" of foreign political NGOs, that will be banned not by a document but by a civil warning manifesto. Something similar may be done with respect to new religious associations. If the state considers that it is possible to live and work with people under this simplified system, then it should inform the population about what these structures really are, even if they are registered.

 

As regards traditional confessions, this innovation is neither cold nor hot. The less that parish priest has to do with reports, the more energy he has for the liturgy. And for antisectarian activity. (tr. by PDS, posted 8 July 2015)


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