Freedom of Religion in Russia - Societal Abuses and Discrimination

Societal Abuses and Discrimination

Here were reports of societal abuses and discrimination based on religious belief or practice, including some physical attacks against individuals and communities because of the victims' religious affiliation (see also the section on Anti-Semitism). Groups that monitor hate crimes reported at least 70 incidents of vandalism against religious targets, including 36 aimed at Jews, 12 against Russian Orthodox, and 11 against Muslims.

On 9 April, 2007, the Stavropol court charged a suspect with murder on religious hatred grounds for the September 2006 killing of Imam Kurdzhiyev.

In February 2007 police charged suspects in the June 2004 killing of Nikolay Girenko, an expert on xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism. Girenko had served for many years as an expert witness in trials involving alleged skinheads and neo-Nazis.

On 8 December, 2006, a hand grenade was thrown into the yard of the house of Ismail Berdiyev, Chairman of the Coordinating Council of Moslems of the North Caucasus. No one was hurt in the attack.

Russian Orthodox priest Andrey Nikolayev, his wife, and their three children were killed on 2 December, 2006, when their house was set on fire. The motive for the arson and murder was not known, but media reported that a criminal group had threatened the priest in the past and had burned down his house in another village.

According to Jehovah's Witness officials, there were 5 incidents of physical attacks on Jehovah's Witnesses, and 11 incidents of police detention in the first half of 2007. In 2006 there were 24 physical attacks and 40 cases of police detention.

Many citizens believe that at least nominal adherence to the ROC is a part of Russian culture, and three other faiths—Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism—are widely considered "traditional religions." Terrorism and events related to the war in Chechnya have given rise to negative popular attitudes toward traditionally Muslim ethnic groups in many regions. Hostility toward non-Russian-Orthodox religious groups sparked harassment and occasionally physical attacks. Religiously motivated violence continued, although it was often difficult to determine whether xenophobia, religion, or ethnic prejudices were the primary motivation. Conservative activists claiming ties to the ROC disseminated negative publications and staged demonstrations throughout the country against Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other minority religions.

Some religious groups participated in interfaith dialogues. Pentecostal and Baptist organizations, as well as the ROC, were reluctant to support ecumenism at the local level, although the national leaders engaged each other at public forums during the reporting period. At the international level, the ROC has traditionally pursued interfaith dialogue with other Christian groups. In the Muslim-dominated regions of the Tatarstan republic and the surrounding Volga region, tensions between Muslims and Russian Orthodox believers occasionally emerged. Law enforcement organizations closely watched Muslim groups. Officials often described Muslim charitable organizations as providing aid to extremists in addition to their overt charity.

A small splinter group of the ultranationalist Russian National Unity (RNE) organization called "Russian Rebirth" registered successfully in the past in Tver and Nizhniy Novgorod as a social organization, prompting protests from human rights groups; however, in several regions such as Moscow and Karelia, the authorities limited the activities of the RNE by denying registration to its local affiliates. According to Sova Center, there were neither registration denials nor registrations of RNE during the reporting period. Sova Center reported that three other ultranationalist organizations were dissolved in 2006. In one case, the Supreme Court upheld the decision by a Krasnodar court to ban the Krasnodar Orthodox Slavic community, an Orthodox Old Believers group that used neo-Nazi symbols.

On 2 July, 2006, 15 shots were fired over a 15-minute period at the Trinikolsky monastery in the Dmitrovsky District of the Moscow Oblast. While no one was injured, the shots caused $12,000 in damage.

On 27 August, 2006, an unknown attacker sprayed teargas, disrupting a Pentecostal church service in the "New Testament" Evangelical Church in the city of Perm.

Muslims continued to encounter societal discrimination and antagonism in some regions. After terrorists associated with Chechen, Ingush, and Islamic extremists seized a school in 2004 in Beslan, North Ossetia, interethnic and interreligious tensions resulting in discrimination persisted in the region without the authorities' intervention, according to NGOs. Muslims claimed that citizens in certain regions feared Muslims, citing cases such as a dispute in Kolomna, approximately 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Moscow, over the proposed construction of a mosque. Government officials, journalists, and the public have liberally labeled Muslim organizations "Wahhabi," a term that has become equivalent with "extremist." Numerous press reports documented anti-Islamic sentiment.

In Muslim-dominated regions, relations between Muslims and Russian Orthodox believers were generally harmonious. Extremely traditional or orthodox versions of Islam were often associated in the public mind with terrorism and radical Muslim fighters in the North Caucasus.

Although the previous reporting period saw the chairman of the Council of Muftis, the head of the Central Spiritual Board of the country's Muslims, and the head of the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus jointly denounce terrorism, the national press carried stories during the reporting period highlighting their public differences in attitudes toward Wahabbism, among other things.

As in the past, there were many attacks against houses of worship, meeting halls, and cemeteries across the country. Attacks ranged from threats and graffiti to arson. Often, even in the face of blatant anti-religious signs, local authorities investigated the cases as "hooliganism," and not under the stronger anti-hate laws, although there were signs that prosecutors were using the hate-crime laws more often. In April 2007 the Government amended the Criminal Code to increase punitive measures for hate crimes and extremism. According to new legislation, an individual convicted of committing an act of vandalism motivated by ideological, political, national, racial and religious hatred or enmity can be sentenced for up to 3 years.

Sova Center reported that 25 acts of vandalism motivated by religious hatred were committed against churches and other religious buildings in 2006, including 11 attacks on Muslim religious buildings. A mosque was bombed in Yahroma village of Moscow region. Mosques in Vladimir and Yaroslavl were attacked with Molotov cocktails.

On 27 September, 2006, arsonists attempted to burn down a mosque in Yaroslavl by throwing six Molotov cocktails at the building. Vandals painted extremist phrases and swastikas on the outer wall of the mosque. Police arrested and charged an 18-year old student with instigation of nationalist, racial, and religious hatred. There was another attempt of arson on the same mosque 3 days earlier. On 25 December, 2006, the arsonists were convicted of desecration and arson; one was given a suspended sentence of 1 year and 3 months, and the other was sentenced to 10 months in a labor camp. The arsonists apologized publicly.

Emmanuel Moscow Evangelical Church reported an arson attack on their building in Solntsevo district of Moscow on the night of 26 March, 2007. Also in March 2007, attackers threw bottles filled with resin at the front wall of Central Prayer House of the Christians of Evangelical Faith in Voronezh.

Sova Center registered 24 cases of vandalism in Orthodox, Muslim, and Jewish cemeteries in 2006. On 3 October, 2006, a group of skinheads desecrated approximately 150 Jewish and Tatar tombs in a cemetery in Tver. Extremist leaflets were found at the scene. A criminal case was initiated on charges of desecrating a cemetery.

On 4 August, 2006, a Muslim cemetery was vandalized in Yekaterinburg. More than a dozen headstones, many of them of historic value, were destroyed. Police characterized the vandalism as hooliganism, not a hate crime, and Muslim community representatives in Yekaterinburg, including Imam Sibgatulla-Hazrat, agreed with this view.

During the reporting period, the tensions between the Vatican and the ROC notably decreased, although the Patriarchy in Moscow continued to object to the transfer of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic See from Lviv to Kiev, Ukraine, which occurred in August 2005. The press coverage of President Putin's March 2007 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI was positive, and Roman Catholic representatives noted a decrease in tensions during the reporting period. Other issues of concern that remained between the two groups included the continued belief that Roman Catholics were proselytizing in the country and a proposal by a local priest to open a Catholic Carmelite convent whose main mission would be to work with orphans in the city of Nizhniy Novgorod. The ROC alleged that the convent would serve as a base for missionary activities, while the Catholic Church maintained that the convent was not a full-fledged convent but a means for caring for local orphans. In April 2007 the Head of the ROC's Inter-Christian Relations Secretariat publicly criticized the Catholic Church for allegedly proselytizing at orphanages, calling their missionary activity "unacceptable."

Reports of the harassment of evangelicals and Pentecostals dramatically decreased during the reporting period, particularly after September 2005, when Bishop Sergey Ryakhovskiy joined the Public Chamber. Nevertheless, African-Russian and African ministers of non-Orthodox Christian churches were subject to religious and racial bigotry.

According to a 13 July, 2006, report by SOVA, an Orthodox priest and other activists attempted to interrupt a Baptist service in the village of Achit (Sverdlovsk region). They reportedly told persons walking by that the Baptists were a dangerous "sect." Police arrived on the scene and fined the Baptists for holding an "unauthorized meeting." Similar actions were reported against Pentecostals and Hare Krishnas.

The press routinely continued to reference members of Jehovah's Witnesses as a religious "sect," although they have been present in the country for approximately 100 years.

In the past, Jehovah's Witnesses officials reported physical attacks against their members throughout the country. The officials were unable to update these figures for this reporting period, citing the difficulty of collecting the information.

A case at the ECHR continued 4 years after a provocative exhibit on religion was vandalized at the Sakharov Center. Although the authorities never prosecuted the vandals, a court found the Center Director and a staff member guilty of inciting religious hatred, and fined them. The case was being appealed at the ECHR.

During the reporting period, the Slavic Center for Law and Justice and a number of minority "nontraditional" religious leaders asserted that the Government and majority religious groups increasingly used the mass media, conferences, and public demonstrations to foment opposition to minority religions as threats to physical, mental, and spiritual health, asserting that these groups threatened national security. During the reporting period, television channels broadcast several programs about "dangerous cults and sects" and implied that these included Pentecostals and other proselytizing religions.