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Russia May Exempt Churches from New NGO Law
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
USA Today - Dec 26, 2006
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-12-26-church-russia_x.htm
Russian disclosure law may exclude churches
By Maria Kolesnikova
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia - The Kremlin might back away from a new law that
would force churches and religious groups to report to the government on
their services, sermons and sources of income.
The rules, contained in a law passed in April, have sparked outrage among
human rights groups, churches operating in Russia and Western
governments, including the European Union.
The Russian government passed the law in an effort to monitor the
activities of organizations such as Amnesty International and Doctors
Without Borders, foreign-funded groups that President Vladimir Putin has
warned might interfere in domestic politics.
During his seven years as president, Putin's government has asserted
greater state control over independent Russian media and business. It
also has eliminated most political opposition in parliament and turned
the country's governorships from elected to appointed jobs.
In a rare reversal, the Federal Registration Service, which is
responsible for enforcing the law, announced Friday it would discuss
reviewing the rules as they apply to religious groups.
"I don't know whether we'll be able to (change the regulations) before
April," says Victor Korolyov, head of the division overseeing religious
organization registration at the Federal Registration Service. Parliament
or the president must approve any changes to the law. Korolyov concedes
the law will be difficult to enforce on nearly a million religious
branches across Russia. He says the government won't demand that
religious groups fully comply for now. Churches are supposed to provide
details on their operations by April 15.
The country's religious leaders say the reporting requirements are
onerous and a painful reminder of the religious suppression of the Soviet
era. "We think it's wrong and even impossible to comply," says Thaddaeus
Kondrusiewicz, the Catholic archbishop in Moscow.
Metropolitan Kliment, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate of the
Russian Orthodox Church - the country's largest religious group - warned
at a presidential council meeting two weeks ago that the requirement
could presage a return to the persecution common during more than 70
years of Soviet rule, when atheism was the official ideology. "We
shouldn't return to the Soviet practice, when the state controlled every
step of a religious organization, when they checked the contents of the
sermons and all the documents," Kliment said.
Restrictions on religious freedom began to be relaxed under Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev. By the end of 2005, there were 22,513 registered
religious organizations. Although 70% of Russia's 143 million people say
they are Russian Orthodox Christians, few attend services regularly. The
country has about 25 million Muslims, the largest religious minority, and
Protestant denominations have more than 2 million followers.
On Dec. 1, five Protestant groups lodged an appeal to First Deputy Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev to exclude churches from the law's accounting
rules. Church leaders also met with government officials over the past
two weeks to try to persuade them to eliminate or relax the other
reporting requirements; they argued that religious groups, which hold
hundreds of services in thousands of regional branches, are different
from relatively small non-government organizations.
While Moscow ponders changing the reporting requirement, some local
officials already are asking church leaders for the names of their
followers, even though the law doesn't explicitly request a list of
worshipers. Vladimir Khvalov, senior pastor at the Pentecostal Christ the
Savior Church in Rostov-on-Don, says that when he was re-registering his
organization six months ago, the local registrar asked him for the names,
addresses and passport data of his congregation of about 1,000. "Why do I
have to list church members by their names to the registrar?" Khvalov
asks. "It's a privacy issue. Will they next come and ask me for
confession disclosures?"
Rights groups worry that the law won't be changed. Applying the law to
religious groups could be a way for the government to target religious
groups by accusing them of failing to follow the rules - or even breaking
the law, says Sergey Chugunov, an attorney at the Slavic Center for Law
and Justice, a Moscow-based rights organization. "This might be
selectively used against some organizations, especially in the
provinces," he says.
Konstantin Bendas, spokesman for the Russian Union of Christians of
Evangelical Faith, says the law's impact on religious groups was
unintentional. "Everyone understood that this law targeted (non-profit
groups) that receive overseas grants and funding," he says. "I don't
think it was specifically targeted against religious organizations."
Lev Levinson, an expert at the Human Rights Institute in Moscow, hopes
the law's shortcomings could result in a total repeal. "If religious
organizations will be relieved of these requirements, why should others
still be affected?" he asks.
================================================================
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Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
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Hash: SHA1
Russia May Exempt Churches from New NGO Law
Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit
USA Today - Dec 26, 2006
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-12-26-church-russia_x.htm
Russian disclosure law may exclude churches
By Maria Kolesnikova
ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia - The Kremlin might back away from a new law that
would force churches and religious groups to report to the government on
their services, sermons and sources of income.
The rules, contained in a law passed in April, have sparked outrage among
human rights groups, churches operating in Russia and Western
governments, including the European Union.
The Russian government passed the law in an effort to monitor the
activities of organizations such as Amnesty International and Doctors
Without Borders, foreign-funded groups that President Vladimir Putin has
warned might interfere in domestic politics.
During his seven years as president, Putin's government has asserted
greater state control over independent Russian media and business. It
also has eliminated most political opposition in parliament and turned
the country's governorships from elected to appointed jobs.
In a rare reversal, the Federal Registration Service, which is
responsible for enforcing the law, announced Friday it would discuss
reviewing the rules as they apply to religious groups.
"I don't know whether we'll be able to (change the regulations) before
April," says Victor Korolyov, head of the division overseeing religious
organization registration at the Federal Registration Service. Parliament
or the president must approve any changes to the law. Korolyov concedes
the law will be difficult to enforce on nearly a million religious
branches across Russia. He says the government won't demand that
religious groups fully comply for now. Churches are supposed to provide
details on their operations by April 15.
The country's religious leaders say the reporting requirements are
onerous and a painful reminder of the religious suppression of the Soviet
era. "We think it's wrong and even impossible to comply," says Thaddaeus
Kondrusiewicz, the Catholic archbishop in Moscow.
Metropolitan Kliment, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate of the
Russian Orthodox Church - the country's largest religious group - warned
at a presidential council meeting two weeks ago that the requirement
could presage a return to the persecution common during more than 70
years of Soviet rule, when atheism was the official ideology. "We
shouldn't return to the Soviet practice, when the state controlled every
step of a religious organization, when they checked the contents of the
sermons and all the documents," Kliment said.
Restrictions on religious freedom began to be relaxed under Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev. By the end of 2005, there were 22,513 registered
religious organizations. Although 70% of Russia's 143 million people say
they are Russian Orthodox Christians, few attend services regularly. The
country has about 25 million Muslims, the largest religious minority, and
Protestant denominations have more than 2 million followers.
On Dec. 1, five Protestant groups lodged an appeal to First Deputy Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev to exclude churches from the law's accounting
rules. Church leaders also met with government officials over the past
two weeks to try to persuade them to eliminate or relax the other
reporting requirements; they argued that religious groups, which hold
hundreds of services in thousands of regional branches, are different
from relatively small non-government organizations.
While Moscow ponders changing the reporting requirement, some local
officials already are asking church leaders for the names of their
followers, even though the law doesn't explicitly request a list of
worshipers. Vladimir Khvalov, senior pastor at the Pentecostal Christ the
Savior Church in Rostov-on-Don, says that when he was re-registering his
organization six months ago, the local registrar asked him for the names,
addresses and passport data of his congregation of about 1,000. "Why do I
have to list church members by their names to the registrar?" Khvalov
asks. "It's a privacy issue. Will they next come and ask me for
confession disclosures?"
Rights groups worry that the law won't be changed. Applying the law to
religious groups could be a way for the government to target religious
groups by accusing them of failing to follow the rules - or even breaking
the law, says Sergey Chugunov, an attorney at the Slavic Center for Law
and Justice, a Moscow-based rights organization. "This might be
selectively used against some organizations, especially in the
provinces," he says.
Konstantin Bendas, spokesman for the Russian Union of Christians of
Evangelical Faith, says the law's impact on religious groups was
unintentional. "Everyone understood that this law targeted (non-profit
groups) that receive overseas grants and funding," he says. "I don't
think it was specifically targeted against religious organizations."
Lev Levinson, an expert at the Human Rights Institute in Moscow, hopes
the law's shortcomings could result in a total repeal. "If religious
organizations will be relieved of these requirements, why should others
still be affected?" he asks.
================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
Search Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/htdig/search.html
List Archives: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
Subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
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