Human Rights in Russia - Freedom of Religion

Freedom of Religion

The Constitution of Russian Federation provides for freedom of religion and the equality of all religions before the law as well as the separation of church and state. As Vladimir Lukin had stressed in his 2005 Ombudsman's report, "the Russian state has achieved significant progress in the observance of religious freedom and lawful activity of religious associations, overcoming a heritage of totalitarianism, domination of a single ideology and party dictatorship".

Russia is a multi-ethnic country with a large majority of Orthodox Christians (61%), high proportion of Muslims (12%), 1% of Jews, about 1% of Catholics, and so on. According to Alvaro Gil-Robles, relations between the representatives of the different religious communities are generally harmonious.

Gil-Robles emphasized the amount of state support provided by both federal and regional authorities for the different religious communities, and stressed the example of the Republic of Tatarstan as "veritable cultural and religious melting pot". Along with that, Catholics are not always heeded as well as other religions by federal and local authorities.

Vladimir Lukin noted in 2005, that citizens of Russia rarely experience violation of freedom of conscience (guaranteed by the article 28 of the Constitution). So, the Commissioner's Office annually accepts from 200 to 250 complaints dealing with the violation of this right, usually from groups of worshipers, who represent various confessions: Orthodox (but not belonging to the Moscow patriarchy), Old-believers, Muslim, Protestant and others.

The different problem arises with concern of citizens' right to association (article 30 of the Constitution). As Vladimir Lukin noted, although quantity of the registered religious organizations constantly grows (22144 in 2005), an increasing number of religious organization fail to achieve legal recognition: e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and others.

The influx of missionaries over the past several years has led to pressure by groups in Russia, specifically nationalists and the Russian Orthodox Church, to limit the activities of these "nontraditional" religious groups. In response, the Duma passed a new, restrictive, and potentially discriminatory law in October 1997. The law is very complex, with many ambiguous and contradictory provisions. The law's most controversial provisions separates religious "groups" and "organizations" and introduces a 15-year rule, which allows groups that have existed for 15 years or longer to obtain accredited status. According to Russian priest and dissident Gleb Yakunin, new religion law "heavily favors the Russian Orthodox Church at the expense of all other religions, including Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.", and it is "a step backward in Russia's process of democratization".

The claim to guarantee "the exclusion of any legal, administrative and fiscal discrimination against so-called non-traditional confessions" was adopted by PACE in June 2005.

Anna Politkovskaya described cases of prosecution and even murders of Muslims by Russia's law enforcement bodies at the North Caucasus. However, there are plenty of Muslims in higher government, Duma, and business.