US State Department Sez Russian Laws and Policies Restrict Religious Freedom

______________________________

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

Is Russia Becoming a Theocracy?

THIS is what HH is REALLY up to. The West hates him for that. That speaks volumes…

______________________________

Editor’s Foreword:

Caveat lector! The author of this piece is a neoliberal pro-Western fanatic who graduated from Harvard. Its chock fulla shit, but you need to know what’s out there. Don’t just read what pleases you… that’s what the Rush Limboob Fan Club droolers do. Always attend to reality… or, reality WILL deal with you.

BMD

******

This weekend, the MP held its Archpastoral Council at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. In his speech to the assembly, President Putin said that, of course, Russia isn’t a theocracy, but, “We’re a secular state of course, and can’t allow state life and Church life to merge, but at the same time, we must avoid too, a vulgar and primitive interpretation of what being secular means. Traditional values, believers’ religious feelings, and people’s rights, freedoms, and dignity must all be protected by both the power of public opinion and the power of the law” (emphasis in the original).

He also said that the Orthodox Church and other traditional Russian religions must be involved in “important fields as the support of family and motherhood, the upbringing and education of children and youth, social development, and the strengthening of the patriotic spirit of the armed forces” (emphasis in the original). The social conservatism inherent in having the Church play a greater role in family life (with “fathers” notably absent from the equation), schooling, and, somewhat counter-intuitively perhaps, the war machine, is nothing new. However, whilst the Russian state has actively promoted the Church since the early Yeltsin years, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the statement was the legal element.

Putin’s statement confirmed that some of the most bizarre parts of the prosecution’s case against the members of Pussy Riot… namely, that their actions contravened medieval Church law… may not have been the surreal aberration they seemed at the time. In fact, the following day, Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev also spoke in favour of giving legal weight to religious doctrines. Russian news sources reported that Kirill “backed the idea of criminal prosecution for blasphemy similar the Pussy Riot’s punk performance in Cathedral of Christ the Saviour”; he was quoted as saying, “The law must protect not only symbols of secular importance, but also objects with sacred meaning for the believers and guard their religious feelings from insults”.

The Orthodox Church has been in the news these days. Last weekend, the Financial Times published a long profile of Fr Tikhon Shevkunov, who’s said to be Putin’s personal confessor; whilst the latest issue of The Economist reviews a new history of religion after the fall of communism. The FT noted the paradox that, whilst “only a small minority of Russians attend church regularly” the MP has become one of the country’s most trusted institutions. Geraldine Fegan, author of the book reviewed in The Economist, was quoted as saying, “Putin wants to capitalise on Orthodoxy’s image of permanence, even as his own legitimacy crumbles”.

Certainly, there’s an intimate relationship between the Church, the Kremlin, and big money. After all, Yeltsin financed the Church, in part, by granting it the right to import and sell tax free cigarettes, whilst the most avid sponsors of new houses of worship over the past 20 years have been oligarchs. Many senior members of the Church hierarchy have themselves become quasi-oligarchs, driving expensive supercars, wearing Swiss watches, and living in multimillion dollar apartments. Today, it’s become very fashionable among the megarich to have their own personal confessors… the latest badge of élite status. However, whilst we know that the church, state, and army have refashioned the old tsarist three-legged stool, it’s much harder to see which of them wields the most power in the equation.

In short, is Putin using the church, or is the church using Putin? As the embrace between them becomes ever closer, the key power struggle to come may no longer be between the Kremlin and the liberals, but rather Putin and his Patriarchate.

3 February 2013

Vadim Nikitin

Foreign Policy

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2013/02/03/is-russia-becoming-a-theocracy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-russia-becoming-a-theocracy

Editor’s Afterword:

This is what the crapitalist crowd in the West truly believes… and Orthodox swine like Lyonyo Kishkovsky, Victor Potapov, James Paffhausen, and Alexander Webster nourish their delusions by feeding them crank and bogus intel (in short, they give the Westerners what they want to hear, receiving attaboys and material rewards in return). Do remember how Jordanville lied about its non-existent ties to a putative “catacomb church” during the Cold War to receive Langley’s shilling… the main enablers of that were Basil Rodzianko and Victor Potapov… and how Schmemann worked for the American propaganda machine (how much Langley money did SVS get for that? Perspirin’ minds wanna know… there’s been no OCA analogue of Alexander Lebedeff (a First Family apparatchik, but an honest man when it comes to Church history) to tell the truth).

This is what the American Establishment believes… and there are traitorous Russians, both in the Rodina and in the diaspora, who sell out to them for filthy lucre and personal gain (after all, Potapov DID (or DOES) suck directly on the US government tit). The truth is that HH is a supporter of fundamental social justice, and he argues that it’s imperative for the state to provide a broad palette of social services (INCLUDING universal access to state-provided single-payer healthcare)… and the people that I named do NOT. Where is HH on every major holiday? He’s out in the hospitals and orphanages visiting sick and orphaned kids, that’s where (he also runs the niftiest Yolka in Moscow)… I’d remind you that James Paffhausen did NOT do that… which one of those two is god-pleasing? I’d say that it was HH… and Paffhausen was a gibbering and posturing poseur. Think on that…

BMD

Orthodox Corruption?

______________________________

Less than three decades ago, it’d been unthinkable for a Russian premier to exchange public expressions of solidarity and goodwill with the head of the country’s Orthodox Church. For years under communism, the institution was suppressed, its priests harassed by the authorities, its churches closed or given over to communal secular pursuits, its devotees scorned for their “superstitious” adherence to doctrines that the state and the party regarded with deep suspicion. Indeed, the USSR was the first nation to have elimination of religion as an ideological objective and tens of thousands… if not hundreds of thousands… of people paid very dearly for their beliefs consequently.

However, things have changed. Nowadays, the nation’s political leaders and top clerics seem to be building an extraordinarily-close relationship. Last week, President Vladimir Putin appeared with Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev to celebrate the latter’s fourth year of leadership of a religion that’s re-establishing its traditional place at the centre of the country’s affairs. Putin, speaking at a ceremony in the Kremlin, said, “At the heart of all Russia’s victories and achievements are patriotism, faith, and strength of spirit. We should give the Church more control over aspects of Russian life; we should give it every opportunity to fully serve in such important fields as the support of family and motherhood, the upbringing and education of children and youth, social development, and the strengthening of the patriotic spirit of the armed forces”.

Such sentiments, which one hears increasingly-often these days, are music to the ears of those who hark back to the days when Russia’s particular brand of Christianity was the country’s dominant moral force. From its foundation in the 10th century, when the Orthodox Church broke from Roman Catholicism (sic), its power and influence grew until it became central to the nation’s very identity, synonymous with Holy Mother Russia. Now, its champions tell you, after the barren wilderness years of Soviet hostility, the Church is merely reclaiming that rightful pre-eminence. Others aren’t quite so convinced. Adherents of other religions and committed atheists (there are still plenty of both in Russia, despite polls which show that almost three-quarters of Russians consider themselves Orthodox) question whether Putin’s recent co-joining of Christian values with patriotism actually has more to do with his desire to unify a country where ethnic and political fault lines are beginning to show than with any genuine commitment to spirituality.

Nevertheless, the Church’s top clerics, basking in the warmth of the Kremlin‘s new-found appreciation, are grateful and happy to reciprocate. Patriarch Kirill famously likened Putin’s time in power to a “miracle of God”. When in the run-up to last year’s presidential elections, the feminist punk-band Pussy Riot controversially entered the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and sang that the Virgin Mary should “throw Putin out”, Church leaders were publicly delighted that the government cracked down hard and that the women received long jail terms. However, there’s more to this closeness than just mutual admiration. One can see physical signs of the Orthodox Church’s resurgence all over Moscow, where a massive state-funded programme, worth billions of roubles, to restore hundreds of Orthodox churches is currently underway.

Although this initiative undoubtedly is returning some of the Russian capital’s ancient architectural wonders to their full glittering glory, it’s caused some to wonder whether the Church should be choosing its friends more wisely. Some even talk darkly about corruption, about the less-than-transparent way publicly-funded reconstruction projects are contracted out, about the oddly-commercial relationships of certain Church institutions, and the controversial use of taxpayers’ money for church-related projects in what is still officially a secular country.

NB:

Click here, it’ll take you to a page with a 25-minute vid on the topic

2 March 2013

Simon Ostrovsky

Veronika Dorman

al-Jezeera

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2013/02/2013267215745877.html

 

Putin Spokesman Peskov Sez Russia’s Internal Affairs No Concern of USA

______________________________

The USA has no place in any dialog between Russia’s government and opposition movements opposed to President Putin’s rule, Putin’s spokesman told an American journal. In an interview published on Thursday, Dmitri Peskov told The National Interest, a bi-monthly American foreign policy journal, “The dialogue between the Russian government and the opposition can’t be a subject of the bilateral relationship between Moscow and Washington, and in no way can be an issue of [interstate] discussion”.

Putin frequently accused the USA of being behind the unprecedented protests against his rule that broke out in December 2011, whilst late last year the alleged torture of opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev sparked a diplomatic row between the two former Cold War foes. The USA also slammed last year a Moscow court’s decision to jail members of the anti-Putin punk rock group Pussy Riot over a protest in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Washington also expressed concern over the treatment of protest leaders such as Aleksei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov, both whom are facing long jail terms.

However, Peskov told the journal that Russia wouldn’t take into account American concerns over what The National Interest called “the domestic climate inside Russia”, saying, “Those are our domestic affairs, our domestic politics. We’re a democratic country, sharing the same values with the whole world, but we’re a country that’ll solve all the problems, domestic and the like, without any interference from abroad”. Peskov also praised what he called Russia’s “growing civil society”.

 25 January 2013

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20130125/179020255/Russias-Internal-Affairs-No-Concern-of-US–Putin-Spokesman.html