JUSTICE MINISTRY DOES NOT TAKE MONEY ON FAITH
Even religious organizations may become foreign agents
by Pavel Korobov
According to a draft law developed by the Ministry of Justice, the government intends to tighten control over the financial and economic activity of religious organizations. In particular, the subject is recipients of financial aid from abroad. Experts point out that the amendment of legislation is being accomplished within the course of a general tightening of control over nongovernmental organizations. Representatives of confessions that receive financial aid from foreign partners have criticized the initiative.
The draft of amendments to the law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations" and other legislative acts (the laws "On noncommercial organizations" and "On state registration of legal persons and individual entrepreneurs") was developed by the Ministry of Justice to partially change the mechanism of control over the activity of religious organizations. The document was prepared in accordance with an instruction from the president of the RF of 22 May 2014 which ordered the establishment of monitoring of "the receipt of charitable contributions and other financial means and property by religious organizations."
At present, such monitoring is conducted within the framework of the law "On noncommercial organizations" (NCO), which provides for either complete or simplified reporting by NCOs to state agencies. This procedure is also retained in the new document but supplementary requirements are included for religious organizations that are recipients of financial means or property from abroad. An explanatory note emphasizes that the measures being adopted are necessary for discovering and reacting to instances "of involvement in extremist and terrorist activity, as well as other violations of legislation of the RF."
In particular, the Ministry of Justice is granted the right to request from recipients of foreign aid "documents containing an account of activity, of the composition of administrative bodies, and of the purposes for spending money and using other property." At the same time, the inspectors may arrive unexpectedly for unannounced inspections. The occasions for such inspections may include information about the presence in the activity of a religious organization of signs of extremism and terrorism, as well as an order from the president of the RF or requests of the prosecutor's office. Violation of the requirements, that is, repeated failure of a religious organization to provide documents, is grounds for filing a lawsuit in court for the liquidation of the organization.
"Given that the provisions of the law on NCOs, which speaks about foreign agents, have not been extended to religious organizations, the Ministry of Justice decided to allocate control over confessions in a separate document," Roman Lunkin, the president of the Guild for Religion and Law, thinks. "Thereby in the religious milieu their own foreign agents appear, who come under total control."
"The amendment of legislation is being accomplished within the course of a general tightening of control over nongovernmental organizations," agrees Alexander Brod, a member of the presidential Council on Human Rights and director of the Moscow bureau for human rights. He says that criticism was expressed back at the stage of discussion of the document, which was partially taken into account. "For example, take unannounced inspections," Mr. Brod told Kommersant. "We know that such measures have effectively paralyzed the activity of some NCOs." The expert doubts that the initiative will be able to help in the struggle against extremism in the religious sphere. "Organizations that receive foreign financing and may have signs of extremist activity, as a rule, are not registered. So the amendments may complicate the life of legally operating religious organizations," he thinks.
Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church state that they do not receive aid from abroad. "Control will affect exclusively those religious organizations that are financed from abroad or conduct extremist activity," Hegumena Kseniia Chernega, the director of the judicial service of the Moscow patriarchate, told Kommersant. She supports the initiative of the justice ministry.
"The law gives additional leverage for pressure on religious organizations and it violates the principle of the separation of religion from the state," Borukh Gorin, the director of the Department for Public Relations of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), told Kommersant. "We do not have special concerns since de jure we submit accounts to government agencies," the rabbi explained.
"It is not clear why the Ministry of Justice is being given functions that subdivisions of the MVD, the Investigation Committee, the prosecutor's office, the FSB, the Federal Tax Service, and the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring already have. Besides they are regulated by the laws 'On combating extremist activity' and 'On freedom of conscience,'" wonders Bishop Konstantin Bendas, the first deputy of the ruling bishop of the Russian Associated Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith. In his opinion, "even the most law-abiding organization gets the stigma of suspicion and unreliability simply by virtue of the conduct of an inspection of it, especially with such a pretext of discovering instances of conducting extremist or terrorist activity."
The first deputy chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia, Rushan Abbiasov, points out that one of the reasons for conducting an unannounced inspection of a religious organization by the Ministry of Justice is the arrival from state agencies or bodies of local administration of information about the presence of signs of extremism or terrorism. "What is this? A return to 1937, when everybody could inform on anybody?" Mr. Abbiasov wonders. In his opinion, the justice ministry's initiative "can complicate the life of officially registered Muslim societies that are combating radicalism, extremism, and terrorism." The mufti points out that Muslims have partnership programs that are financed by Muslim countries, and he adds: "I hope these programs will not suffer; all our activity is transparent."
According to the president's instruction, the draft law was to be developed before 25 February 2015, after which it will be introduced into the State Duma. "On the whole, we have a positive attitude toward this document," Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), the chairman of the State Duma Committee on Affairs of Public Associations and Religious Organizations, told Kommersant. "In light of the fact that there are 25 thousand registered religious organizations in Russia, control is necessary, including over where financing is coming from." "It is no secret that there exist attempts at penetration by radical Islam into the sphere of traditional Islam," the deputy gave examples. "There are cases of illegal activities of the leadership of several religious organizations who engage in psychological manipulation of believers to get material resources." (tr. by PDS, posted 4 February 2015)
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