RETURN OUR SOULS
Ministry of Justice filed suit to ban Moscow Church of Scientologists
by Ivan Egorov
Rossiiskaia Gazeta, 24 November 2015
Today the Moscow city court banned the activity of the Moscow Church of Scientology. A lawsuit for the liquidation of the organization of Moscow Scientologists was filed in the city court by the Russian Ministry of Justice. In the course of a routine inspection of Scientologists, the Ministry of Justice established that the charter of the religious organization is not in compliance with provisions of the federal law on freedom of religious confession. In addition, its activity is conducted on the territory of St. Petersburg, although the charter indicated that the territorial sphere of its activity is Moscow. Also, during the inspection it was discovered that the word "Scientology" is registered as a trademark whose copyright owner is the Center of Religious Technology in the USA.
In its lawsuit, the Ministry of Justice emphasized that this violates the requirements of legislation of the RF on freedom of conscience and religious confession. The hearing on the lawsuit began more than a year ago, but then it was suspended pending the completion of a review of an appeal by Scientologists who challenged the refusal to approve the organization's charter.
The Moscow Church of Scientology was registered as a religious organization on 25 January 1994. However later the capital directorate of the Ministry of Justice refused to reregister Scientologists. In December 1996 the State Duma adopted a resolution in which the Church of Scientology was classified as a destructive religious organization.
In addition, in April 2010, a court in the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous district Yugra ruled a number of Scientologists' materials written by Ron Hubbard to be extremist and ordered their inclusion in the list of extremist materials that are prohibited on the territory of the RF. A year later by decision of the Shchelkovsk city court in the suburbs of Moscow eight additional works of this author were entered into this list.
In July of this year the Izmailovo court ruled the refusal of the justice ministry to register the Moscow Church of Scientology as a religious organization to be legal. At that time one of the grounds for making the decision to refuse registration was the conclusion of the Expert Council for Conducting State Religious Studies Expert Analysis under the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of Justice of Russia for Moscow. As part of the consideration of the case, an independent judicial religious studies expert analysis was ordered according to whose results the religious association of the Moscow Church of Scientology was not recognized as a religious organization.
Dianetics and Scientology are a religious and philosophical movement founded in the USA in the 1950s by science fiction writer Lafayette Ron Hubbard. However the scientific community has not recognized it as science.
It was called a pseudoreligion by a determination of the bishops' council of the Russian Orthodox Church titled "On pseudo-Christian sects, neopaganism, and occultism."
Critics of Scientology maintain that the organization is a totalitarian sect and its methods have a destructive effect on a person's organism and psyche. In Russia, attempts to inject teachings of Scientology into educational institutions and productive enterprises have been identified. Several experts view Hubbard's teaching as a pseudo-UFO religion. It is noted that ideas and symbols of Scientologists are close to satanism. The scientific community considers Scientology false science. It is known that Scientologists collect very detailed information about each person who falls within their field of vision. At the same time, each person who becomes a member of the "church" goes through a so-called auditing which actually is a 3-4 hour interrogation about personal life and work that is videotaped.
In the opinion of persons who combat totalitarian sects, some of the information collected by Scientologists is shared with the Central Intelligence Agency of the USA and it is possible that it is for this reason that the American State Department lobbies for the interests of Scientology in all countries of the world. Among the most famous Scientologists are Tom Cruise and his ex-wife Katie Holmes as well as John Travolta and his wife Kelly Preston.
Expert opinion:
Alexander Dvorkin, the president of the Russian Association of Centers for the Study of Sects and Religions: "The Church of Scientology is structured very cleverly and therefore it is very difficult to close down the sect as a whole. Numerous organizations of Scientology are registered either as public foundations or as commercial, rehabilitative, or educational organizations. While their names are not required even to mention the term Scientology.
"It is the danger of Scientologists that they have a 'blurred' legal status. It is simply impossible to liquidate them all at once by a single judicial decision.
"So that yet another attempt to put an end to Scientology in Russia, particularly by liquidating the religious association of the Moscow Church of Scientology, most likely will not be much more effective than previous ones." (tr. by PDS, posted 24 November 2015)
Russian original posted on Interfax-Religiia site, 24 November 2015
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.