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

21 October 2012. Franklin Graham Kisses Romney’s Naked Backside at High Noon… Mormonism is No Longer a Cult According to Him

THIS is what Billy Graham truly believes in… his son is a liar and poltroon

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Firstly, I want you to read Frank Schaefer’s post on this topic. Now, read this from the Huffington Post.

Note this from the Schaefer piece:

The surprise outage of the flagship global evangelising organization website comes days before the 2012 presidential election, and on the heels of a widening scandal that opened up when aging evangelism superstar Billy Graham made a widely-heralded non-endorsement of presidential contender Mitt Romney, and, soon after, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) website scrubbed a page on which Graham identified Mormonism as a “cult”, along with the Unification Church and Scientology. … To secular audiences, it is hard to overemphasise the earthquake-scale magnitude of this scandal within modern American evangelicalism… superstar evangelist Billy Graham was friend and confidant of multiple presidents, such as Richard Nixon, and was widely viewed as a more sophisticated and inclusive counterweight to theologically-rigid tendencies within Christian fundamentalism. Fundamentalists strongly criticised Graham for his willingness to appear in public with representatives of non-Christian faiths.

Note this from the latter piece:

In February, Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the BGEA, made headlines after questioning Obama’s Christianity and alluding to Obama possibly being a Muslim; he’s been less discreet about his political support than his father. He wrote in a recent op-ed that Obama plans to rebuild America in what could amount to creating a “new nation without God or perhaps under many Gods”. … After Romney met with Graham, the BGEA removed a page from its website that called Mormonism as a “cult,” along with Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientologists, Spiritists, and the Unification Church.

I asked an older Anglican friend of mine, who knows Billy Graham personally, what they felt about this. The answer was unambiguous. “Billy’s not concerned with politics right now. He’s at the end of his life; he’s got more important things on his mind than petty political concerns. This lash-up is from his son, make no mistake on it”. Indeed, I agree. Franklin Graham doesn’t have a tithe of his father’s ability or cred; yet, he’s trying to use his father’s charismata and mana to endorse his Far Right delusions. Whatever you might think of Billy Graham’s religious viewpoints, he’s a man of principle. If he didn’t endorse Romney in the near past, he’s not doing so now. His son cleverly worded the BGEA release so that it meant one thing to his father (a gentleman of the old school) and another to New Republican activists such as himself. He misled his father into supporting a policy that he refused to support (that’s clever… and evil to the bone).

At present, Billy Graham doesn’t move much from his North Carolina home due to infirmities of age. His son uses his father’s name and rep to back his harebrained notions. Note well that there was no video or audio of Billy Graham making these statements; they’re written statements issued by the BGEA. In short, Franklin Graham used his father… I find that unconscionable, nasty, and quite “below the salt”. Any child who’d do such with their parents is a shit-spattered pig, full stop. Franklin should’ve left his father out of things after Billy’s statement of non-support for Romney. That’s what an honourable and decent person would’ve done. Franklin Graham told the world what he was by this legerdemain.

Nevertheless, it tells one much about both “New Evangelicals” and the “New Republican Party”…  both are soulless and godless in their essence. Their loud religiosity only compounds the evil. “Honour your father and your mother”… Franklin Graham spat on that, so, what does that tell you of his “religion” and about his ethical grounding? If he can’t even keep the Decalogue, what sort of “Christian” is he? I’ve got to hurl… politics is a foul rum go at best, but this is nauseating beyond all measure. God have mercy on poor Billy… his son used him to advance low political ends… HIS OWN FLESH N’ BLOOD DID IT TO HIM. That’s what makes it so horrendous. Deus videat et iudicare.

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Sunday 21 October 2012

Albany NY

US State Department Accused Russia of Violating the Rights of Religious Minorities (Again…)

Scientology’s E-Meter… if this isn’t proof that “there’s a sucker born a minute and two born to take ‘em”, I don’t know what is. I don’t cry over cults getting the chop from the authorities… they’re more P T Barnum than C S Lewis… and that’s a fact.

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According to a report published by the US State Department on patterns of religious freedom in the world, Russia has significant restrictions on religious freedom. The report said, “The RF Constitution guarantees freedom of religion; however, other laws restrict this freedom. Some religious groups suffer discrimination; others can ‘t register officially”. The State Department stated that Russia doesn’t have a state religion, but the Russian Orthodox Church (sic) has a dominant position, “giving it a privileged status, along with other traditional religious groups”. In the opinion of the report’s authors, other religious organisations in Russia, in particular, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists, still face difficulties in registering. In addition, often, the authorities ban their literature. “For most Russians, religious questions aren’t a source of social tension or other problems. However, there are tensions between the majority religions and religious minorities”, the compilers of the State Department report concluded.

14 September 2011

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=42220

Editor’s Note:

We’re supposed to boo-hoo over JWs and Scientologists… they’re cults, NOT religions. If adult nutters want to kill themselves by refusing proper medical treatment, so be it… let them do so. The Russian government is correct when it steps in and overrides nutcase parents, though. Let ‘em howl, I say… save the kid’s life… that’s what’s important. These people are the equivalent of Fred Phelps, Terry Jones, and Harold Camping. To say that they’re fringe lunatics is an understatement… such sorts make all believers look bad (Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham aren’t much better).

The state has the right to preserve order… and Radical Sectarians are Nihilist Anarchists to the bone. If you don’t believe in the Church, you proclaim an anthropocentric and self-absorbed faith. It’s “Me and Jayzuss”… “Jayzuss, my personal saviour”, no doubt about it… and that’s NOT Christian in the least. Remember, Sectarianism requires Anarchy to thrive… and the most vicious form of Anarchy is Nihilistic Libertarianism. It’s not just “Objectivism”… Ayn Rand’s noisome little ideology… it’s also the Prosperity Gospel, the Religious Right, and the Moral Majority sorts (the organisation’s gone, but its sordid ethos lives on). That’s why the Religious Right is brutally Neoliberal and Laissez-Faire. If there were order and justice… why, there’d be no place for them, don’t you see? Order implies structure, which implies hierarchy, which implies the Church, which implies God… and His Truth. Anarchy implies formlessness, which implies cacophony, which implies self-absorption, which implies Satan… and his lies and deceptions. Reflect on this… those who have the name of Jesus most on their lips honour Him the least by their actions.

None dare call it blasphemy.

BMD

Session at the 16th Christmas Readings:Totalitarian Sects in States with the Rule of Law

A Pentecostalist conventicle… a good example of totalitarian sectarianism

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On 30 January, as a part of the 16th annual Christmas Readings, Archbishop Zosima of Yelets and Kalmykia headed the session Totalitarian Sects in States with the Rule of Law, as reported by the website Patriarchia.ru. Vladyki Zosima introduced Professor Aleksandr Leonidovich Dvorkin of St Tikhon Orthodox University in Moscow, head of the Russian Association for the Study of Religions and Sects (RATsIRS). Professor Dvorkin called last year “the year of the court trials”. This was because of the cases that were unsuccessfully directed at the RATsIRS. In particular, the courts didn’t satisfy an action taken against Professor Dvorkin by Sergei Ryakhovsky, a leader in the Russian neo-Pentecostalist movement. Ryakhovsky objected to the phrase “Sergei Ryakhovsky, who plans an ‘Orange revolution’” used by Professor Dvorkin in the magazine Natsional’ny interes (National Interest). The court rejected the plaintiff’s argument, saying that Professor Dvorkin had the right to express his opinion in that form in that venue.

Other speakers touched on the topics of the general tendencies inherent in sectarianism and the activity of specific totalitarian sects. Fr Aleksandr Novopashin, the vice president of the RATsIRS, delivered an address on the propaganda activities of such sects using the example of Scientology. Ksenia Kirillova, a jurist and representative of RATsIRS from the Sverdlovsk oblast, spoke of the problem of the attempts of ESP advocates and pseudo-healers to gain legal registration and recognition. Fr Aleksandr Pikalev, representative of RATsIRS from Northern Osetia, who gave his opinion concerning the spiritual danger contained in the works of the popular writer Yuliya Voznesenskaya, gave an interesting diversion from the usual topic. Fr Aleksandr believes her works are dangerous because people think they’re “Orthodox missionary literature”, whereas, in reality, she substitutes her own crude fabrications and notions in place of Orthodox teaching, and her books are filled with her fantasies concerning the themes of the Church and the Gospel.

31 January 2008

Pravoslavie.Ru

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/news/080131164719

Editor’s Note:

It seems that Russians are just as bedevilled by the spiritually immature (and downright jumped-up frauds) writing books and calling them “Orthodox” as we are in America. Fr Aleksandr, let me tell you about some of the dodgy sorts we have here in America… oh… you’ve seen that yourself… I guess that ignorance isn’t creative after all!

BMD