US State Department Sez Russian Laws and Policies Restrict Religious Freedom

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According to an annual report released on Monday by the US State Department, Russia was amongst the countries (including Saudi Arabia, DPRK, Cuba, Iran, and China) that imposed restrictions on freedom of religion last year. US Secretary of State John Kerry commented to the press, “This report is a clear-eyed objective (sic!) look at the state of religious freedom around the world. When necessary, yes, it does directly call out some of our close friends, as well as some countries with whom we seek stronger ties. It does so in order to try to make progress, even though we know that it may cause some discomfort. But when countries undermine or attack religious freedom, they not only unjustly threaten those whom they target. They also threaten their country’s own stability… attacks on religious freedom are therefore both a moral and a strategic national security concern for the USA”.

According to the International Religious Freedom Report for 2012, the Russian government “targeted members of minority religious groups through the use of extremism charges to ban religious materials and restrict groups’ right to assemble”. It said authorities also “restricted religious minorities through detention, raids, denial of official registration with the Ministry of Justice (Minyust), and denial of visas to religious workers”. Suzan Johnson Cook, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, a division of the US State Department that monitors religious persecution and discrimination around the world, said, “Religious freedom is essential for a stable, peaceful, and thriving society. … As this report makes clear, much work remains to be done”.

The report finds evidence of anti-Muslim sentiment and discrimination in Russia, as well as an increase in anti-Semitism, pointing to vandals in Russia painting a swastika on a fence at a St Petersburg synagogue in May 2012, and in July 2012, vandals painting a swastika on a synagogue wall in Irkutsk. The report alleged, “Members of minority religious groups continued to experience harassment and occasional physical attacks. Violent extremism in the North Caucasus region and an influx of Central Asian migrant workers led to negative attitudes in many regions toward traditionally-Muslim ethnic groups”.

Amongst the claimed instances that raised concern in Russia:

• Reports of detentions and onerous financial penalties against members of minority religious groups
• Detaining Jehovah’s Witnesses and adherents of the Islamic theologian Bediüzzaman Said Nursî and charging them with “extremism”
• Searching and seizing the property of members of minority religious groups such as Scientologists and Falun Gong
• Restrictions on the rights of minority religious groups to meet publicly
• A two-year prison sentence for members of the punk-rock band Pussy Riot, for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”, after they performed a protest song in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour

The report asserted, “There’s no state religion, but the Russian Orthodox Church and other ‘traditional’ religious communities received preferential consideration”. The annual report details the status of religious freedom in 195 countries throughout the world. Mandated by, and presented to, the US Congress, under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.

20 May 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20130521/181259579/Russian-Laws-Policies-Restrict-Religious-Freedom—US-Report.html

Editor’s Note:

BOO-HOO! Let’s all shudder together in unison. Americans have NO right at all to point fingers. Look at the vacuous anti-Muslim diatribes broadcast by the likes of Fox News, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Peter King. You’d think that Muslims were responsible for cancer, the common cold, athlete’s foot, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. THIS is why America and Americans are hated throughout the whole world. “Why, we’re so good that all of you unwashed yobbos and wogs have to kiss our naked arse in full view of everybody, or we’ll send you ungrateful and disrespectful sods democracy on the bomb-racks of a USAF bomber”. That’s what it is, full stop… and no one can deny it. However, they got their comeuppance in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, they ended by putting a pro-Iranian junta in power (a delicious irony if there ever was one), and they can’t impose their diktat over the Hindu Kush, even though they’ve spent twelve years trying to do so.

This is more Anglo-Saxon posturing… yes, kids, it’s what you see amongst the konvertsy… we’re all so BACKWARD… but all we have to do is to follow the simon-pure WASPs, kiss their bums whenever they present them, and everything will be hunky-dory. Well, I don’t give such twaddle any truck any more… life is too short. Cross yourself, say “Slava Bogu”, and tell ‘em to their face, “Kiss my arse”… you’ll feel 100 percent better, and they won’t bother you any further (they WILL trash you behind your back, but them’s the breaks, kids). Silly sorts, aren’t they? It takes ALL kinds in our sinful-ginful world.

BMD

25 March 2013. Passover Starts Tonight… That’s Why You’re Not Seeing Your Jewish Friends

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At sundown tonight, Passover, the Festival of Freedom, begins, and it won’t end until sundown on 1 April. My good wishes to all of my Jewish friends and readers. May God bless you, one and all…

BMD 

Russian Vessels may be Detained in American Ports

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The press service of the Sakhalin and Kuriles regional department of the RF Agency for Fisheries warned in a statement citing the Transportation Ministry that the American authorities might try to detain Russian vessels in seaports in the USA. Its statement read, ”A US Federal Court in Washington DC complied with the demand of the American Hassidic organisation, Agudas Chasidei Chabad, in introducing financial sanctions against Russia for its refusal to return the collection of manuscripts of Lubavicher rabbies known as the Schneerson Collection”. Therefore, the press service warned that Russian state property that isn’t protected by diplomatic immunity, including vessels that enter American seaports, might be detained in order to make Russia comply with the American court decision.

 25 March 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_25/Russian-vessels-may-be-arrested-in-US-ports-agency/

Editor’s Note:

No US court, federal or state, has ANY jurisdiction over affairs or property in Russia. NONE. The Hasids are going too far… they always do, that’s why those who encounter them generally detest them. This is too much. The Schneerson Collection is Russian state property, full stop, end of story. If the Hasids want to use it, they must go to Moscow. After all, remember WHY they want the collection… they want to restrict access to it to only those they approve of. That is, they’d restrict access to the collection only to Jews that kowtow to them. The Schneerson Collection is part of the general religious legacy of Russia… that’s where it belongs. If the Hasids don’t like that, it’s too bloody bad. I find it detestable that these nasty and bloody-minded individuals embody every stereotype of the Jew bruited by anti-Semites. It’s not fair… all too often, innocent Jews suffer because Hasid blowhards engage in disgusting unpleasantness like the court case to steal the Schneerson Collection (they never owned it, therefore, they have no right to it whatsoever). It’s not fair nor is it just (the guilty parties don’t suffer… they wall themselves off from the world)… that’s a thought on this Passover Eve, isn’t it?

BMD  

Belarus Commemorates Holocaust Victims

11 April: International Day to Remember the Liberation of the Prisoners of the Nazi Concentration Camps

Yefim Tsvik

1985

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On Saturday, Belarus marked Holocaust Victims Memorial Day. On 2 March 1942, the Nazis killed more than 5,000 Jews from the Minsk Ghetto (which had 80,000 to 100,000 residents) at the “Pit”. Later, in 1947, the USSR erected a monument to Holocaust victims at the place of this tragedy. This Saturday, Belarusian Jewish groups came to the memorial to commemorate the victims of that massacre.

2 March 2013

Voice of Russia World Service

http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_03_02/Belarus-commemorates-Holocaust-victims/