RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Orthodox sect-fighter riles Hindus

LAWSUIT BY KUMAR PRAKASH AGAINST IRENAEUS OF LYON RUSSIAN ASSOCIATION OF CENTERS FOR STUDY OF RELIGIONS AND SECTS DISCUSSED IN STATE DUMA

SOVA Center for News and Analysis, 15 December 2017

 

On 12 December 2017, a roundtable was held in the State Duma, the occasion for which was an appeal by the head of the Center for Facilitating the Preservation and Development of Hindu Culture, Kumar Prakash, who is worried about the growth of religious intolerance in Russia.

 

Participants in the event included Vadim Samodurov (the emcee), Prasun Prakash (the son of Kumar Prakash), Pavel Kostylev, attorney Kali Akhilgov, Semmi Kotvani (the president of the Association of Indian Business in Russia), and deputy Valery Rashkin (C.P.R.F.), who in March 2017 called for investigating the activity of the "sectologist" Alexander Dvorkin because of his statements about Hinduism.

 

Prasun Parkash described for the audience how "A. Dvorkin's forum has for two years now conducted propaganda work against their society and several news media draw upon this branch of the forum for information for their articles." In late 2016 Kumar Prakash filed a lawsuit in court against the St. Irenaeus of Lyon Russian Association of Centers for Study of Religions and Sects, headed by A. Dvorkin, but he did not win the case.

 

"The forum that Mr. Dvorkin leads," V. Rashkin said in his turn, "harms the establishment of intercultural and friendly relations with India. I think that it has already reached severity. If people begin to come out onto the streets in rallies, this would get hot. It is now time to take measures from the government's point of view and to attract the attention of law enforcement agencies."

 

We recall that in early February 2017 there was a demonstration of protest in Delhi, whose participants accused A. Dvorkin of "defaming Hinduism and offending their religious feelings." (tr. by PDS, posted 16 December 2017)


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