Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Monday 31 December 2018

Russia keeps using anti-extremism law to prosecute peaceful worshippers and non-traditional groups

Religious freedom needs to move forward in the world. Unfortunately, 80 percent of the world’s population lives in a country where there’s some type of religious freedom restrictions, in some cases very significant

Russia has been criticized for banning Jehovah's Witnesses and abusing its anti-extremism law to prosecute peaceful worshippers and nontraditional groups including Scientologists.

Since the passing of Russia's 2016 law criminalizing missionary activity, NGOs have reported 156 cases of religious groups being targeted that also include Christian groups from various denominations, according to U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback.

Tuesday 19 April 2016

Russia's battle against the Jehovah’s Witnesses

Last Friday Russia’s Supreme Court declined to ban the Jehovah’s Witnesses of Tyumen as extremist organization, RAPSI, the Russian Legal Information Agency, reports from the courtroom.

Already 12 years ago a Jehovah’s Witnesses group in Moscow was charged of recruiting children, encouraging believers to break from their families, inciting suicide and preventing believers from accepting medical assistance and had to be dissolved and banned.

In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights overturned that court ruling and ruled that Russia should pay 70,000 euros to the defendants.

Late December 2013 already the leader of thereligious group in Tobolsk, Siberia was charged with extremism and the prevention of a blood transfusion that nearly led to the death of a female member of the group.

In January 2014, after one year of debates the court in Kurgan ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the prosecutor’s office of Kurgan in the Urals to declare the Jehovah’s Witnesses book Keep Yourselves in God’s Love and the booklet Resist the Spirit of a Changing World extremist.
The decision was  forwarded to the Justice Ministry for inclusion in the ministry’s list of extremist materials.

The books talk about how to have a happy life, what you can hope for, how to develop good relations with God and what you should know about God and its meaning.

In March 2015, a court in Tyumen fined the organization 50,000 rubles ($752) and seized prohibited literature.

The Tyumen Regional Court ordered the liquidation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses branch in 2015. The court granted a motion filed by prosecutors and declared the group extremist.The Supreme Court thus reversed the lower court’s ruling.

According to a representative for the Jehovah’s Witnesses branch, the case has been framed up.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have had many legal problems in Russia.



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Find to read:

Jehovah’s Witnesses literature declared extremist

Jehovah’s Witnesses website, books declared “extremist” in Russia

 

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Thursday 4 February 2016

Russian Orthodox Church demonstrating its presence

English: Cathedral of Christ the Saviour over ...
Cathedral of Christ the Saviour over Moscow River. Moscow (Russia).  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When we see documentaries about the ex-Soviet states we are confronted with the quantity and size of Russian churches and the holy images on buses and taxis.

On the buses and taxis people at first after the end of the Soviet Union could find adverts for all sorts of human pleasures.  The dashboard standard in the 1990s was soft porn which as the 2000s wore on, got superseded by "holy images" as a visible sign of social change in post-Soviet Russia.
Sometimes we have the impression that the Russians have found back religion and that the churches are getting enough visitors. But from people who recently went to Russia this may be an incorrect picture.
With the exceptions of major holy days, however, churches are not full. One of the curious characteristics of resurgent Orthodox Christianity is that, while the vast majority of citizens of the Russian Federation identify themselves as Orthodox, this is not reflected in church attendance. {In Search of Believers}
The end of communism has allowed the church to demonstrate its presence in a way that the Soviet authorities would never have permitted. Mühling’s interest in the story of an icon painter shot by the Soviets leads him to the New Martyrs’ Church at Butovo, just beyond the southern edge of Moscow’s urban sprawl. During the purges of the 1930s, it was here that in 14 months, some 20,000 people were shot and buried for crimes against Soviet power. Mühling’s encounter with the church’s priest, whose own grandfather had been among those killed, is a fascinating piece of personal and social history. {In Search of Believers}
 In 2007, as BBC Moscow correspondent, James Rodgers, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at City University London, where he lectures on the History of Journalism and the Reporting of Armed Conflict, visited the church to report on the ceremonies, which were held to mark the 70th anniversary of the start of the killings.
Among the impressions gathered that day, two remain with me above all. Firstly, given that this was such a traumatic period in the country’s past, how few people were actually there: hundreds only, just a stone’s throw from a city of some ten million. Secondly, that no senior officials were present. Mr Medvedev, then prime minister, was not among the crowd nor was President Putin. Mühling’s telling of what unfolded there, and the links between past and present – there is also an encounter with an elderly resident of a nearby dacha settlement, who dismisses the deaths at Butovo as ‘a few priests’ – could have been even better had he reflected a little on the way that wider Russian society today seems not to pay much attention. {In Search of Believers}
journey into russia pbk
> Continue reading:  In Search of Believers,
concerning James Rodgers 's review of A Journey into Russia (Haus Publishing, 2015) by Jens Mühling 

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Putin's Handy use of the Russian Orthodox Church

The nave of Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral, t...
The nave of Holy Trinity Orthodox Cathedral, the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Chicago and the Midwest, Orthodox Church in America, Chicago, Illinois looking east toward the iconostasis. Designed by Louis Sullivan, built 1899–1903. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Since the communist state dissolved, some communist may mourn about what they lost. Several Russians are not better off than before in the Soviet Union.

In the Soviet Union it was the state which had the strings in their hands. Today in a certain way the strings may have changed hands into the ones of the Russian Orthodox priests. But they are just the puppet-strings of the man in power.

For some years now president Vladimir Putin knows to direct everything according to his dictatorial will. He also very well knows what he needs to have his acts agreed with by the majority of the people. For this reason he holds a very firm grip on the Russian Orthodox Church which raised from the ashes as if it was never forbidden in the Soviet Union.
In spite of Putin’s firm grip on power and the absence of credible opposition in the country, Putin can’t risk another uprising like the one in 2011.{Christianization of Warfare: Putin’s manipulation of history}
The last few years we could see that Putin is slippery as an eel. He knows that by giving food and games he can win the people. Not providing them with enough money to stay alive it probably thinks it is much safer to give people hopes and some institutions where they can go to to loose themselves in thoughts of better times.
It is only with the help of the church that Putin could rally most of the Russians on his side despite some disgruntlement in some sections of orthodox Slav society.
The fact that the Russians generally do not display religiosity in public shouldn’t deceive us from the reality; the orthodox Christianity is the part of “Russian identity”, comparable with “Turkishness” that also, in some degree, means Islam.{Christianization of Warfare: Putin’s manipulation of history}
In the tradition of Stalin and Lenin, Putin knows to direct his country and bring it in the adventures he loves, in the hope to become a bigger personality to be remembered in history.
Obviously, he would not go for the erstwhile soviet communism or socialism anymore. People could say the whole lot of things; though in reality Russians are prone to easily buy the glorious age of the soviet empire, without favouring its Marxist-Leninist value system.{Christianization of Warfare: Putin’s manipulation of history}
Putin has found a very good solution by searchings deep inside Russian history, where he finds the Russian Orthodox Church, an institution that despite some oddities is still worth eulogizing because of its resilience even during the protracted Soviet era.
The church, despite its rise in Russia just during the middle ages, had served as the only “national” identity; majority of Russians could remember and accept it more than the defunct Marxist value. It teaches them, amongst others, that mother Russia is always in danger from outside barbarians, and it is one of their sacred duties to do preemptive strikes far away to save the nation. {Christianization of Warfare: Putin’s manipulation of history}
People do love tradition and lots of spiritual rituals. They love all the ostentation the Orthodox Church is offering them. In those churches they can burn candles and ask for blessings.
The priest have lots of time in a long service to convince people their national leader is doing the best for the country and is fighting against the godless people in the East.
As in the old times the Russian Orthodox Church has found the barbarians to fight against and to ask their churchgoers to fund their necessary tasks to protect the nation for further decay by such ungodly people.
Putin is a graduate of soviet intelligence academy. He knows how to manipulate/herding people into his frame. So when he wants to legitimize his war, he would brand name the adventure to make it as a war against the Orthodox Church. With his autocratic apparatus he then spreads that framing, using everything including Christening and blessing the aircrafts and the missiles being used in Syria while presenting that his war against ISIL in Syria is also the orthodox’s war. {Christianization of Warfare: Putin’s manipulation of history}
However, the question that must be baffling to Putin and his war veterans shamelessly involved in killing the innocent Syrians is whether his manipulation of history by linking Russian warfare with orthodox Christianity would ever succeed. The reply is definitely in the negative, particularly in view of the majority of the Russians living with communism in depth of their hearts. Thus, the course of action adopted by Putin in his present war games would force him to meet his Waterloo, Inevitably. {Christianization of Warfare: Putin’s manipulation of history}
In discussing the Moscow Patriarchate Russian Orthodox Church (MPROC) in the context of modern foreign and domestic policy of Russia, it should be noted that, any large religious organization is a complex and multi-faceted mechanism that can hardly be clearly defined in terms of the political preferences of all its members. {How Russian Church serves Kremlin propaganda}
However, we should recognize that at the moment the official involvement of the Russian Orthodox Church (first and foremost – its highest Church hierarchy) in the political process is so great, that the Church in many ways has become one of the common elements created by the Kremlin propaganda machine. {How Russian Church serves Kremlin propaganda}

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Finding dachas to live in peace


Change in traditional settlement forms in Russia continued
When we read the old Russian literature we can see that the folks in Russia went from one place to the other. Many Russians still are nomads at heart,
something that “radically distinguishes them from [their] European neighbors who tend to live in one place only. Russians on the other hand may live in Arkhangelsk but work elsewhere in central Russia or the Far East much of the year.
From those many Russian stories we do have lots of ideas of those dachas. "Dacha" is one of those Russian words ("dacha" derives from the Russian verb "to give," dat') which entered many languages, giving people many dreams about that what seems to be more than just a place.
it is a phenomenon that defies translation. {Putting the Dacha in Its Place}
The dacha made itself integral to Russian life and culture. It is not any-more that what began as a token of elite status. Today society has totally changed
 
The dramatic increase in the number of dacha owners – now some 60 million people – and the concomitant growth of the 40 to 50 million people who support them represent another aspect of life outside traditional Russian cities and villages. Such people are often far more numerous on any given territory than are the original residents. {Rural Russia is alive and well}

In the cities people are seen and noticed also by federal institutions. There the state has still a lot in control. Outside the cities the state control seems to be less. That makes that those who do prefer an other way of living, than the previous state structures imposed on their citizens, escape to the country.

In the rural areas we may find more people who do not adhere to the traditional thought. We may find more people who have stepped away from communism, atheism but also from Russian Orthodox Church. As such in the rural areas you may find several Christadelphians doing everything to survive according to the Will of the Most High. Also the Jehovah Witnesses may find it easier to live in such areas. Furthermore we can find many sectarians who also found their way to the countryside.

There are some 10 million sectarians and almost as many more agriculturalists who often take over villages that have become vacant. In many cases, both groups remain “’outside the state’s field of vision.’” But they are very much there in fact.
Many of these new or new-old settlements have no official status. That often means that any structures that are erected have no official status and that those who live “outside the state” are at least formally without the social services other Russians receive. {Rural Russia is alive and well}
mol_169629_big2
> Please do read more about what, for the last decade, Simon Kordonsky with his group of scholars at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics found by investigating what rural Russia is like, why it is now so different from what it was in the past, and why because of these changes Moscow often fails to take it into account in its approach to the country.
 > Rural Russia is alive and well
>>Кочевой образ жизни помогает выжить российской глубинке

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Change in traditional settlement forms in Russia

Open Russia World brings the message that provincial Russia is not what it was 20 years ago, but is alive and well.

When we look at documentaries about the ex-soviet states we can see that many villages become deserted because of the young people going to find their luck and prosperity in the cities.
For the last decade, Simon Kordonsky has led a group of scholars at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics in investigating what rural Russia is like, why it is now so different from what it was in the past, and why because of these changes Moscow often fails to take it into account in its approach to the country.
Among “the new people” of rural Russia, his team has found, are “those who want to isolate themselves from social contacts and government supervision, dacha owners, people who want to live in harmony with nature, and sectarians.” In many cases, these people are moving into places that have been deserted by their former residents.
The people who left the countryside to make their life in the cities, created spaces where citizens from the busy towns could find some quietness and could find a possibility to come back in unison with nature.

Today it is not any more the state which determines where people have to live, nor what they have to do. People seem to be free to go wherever they want. The state leaves it to them to make individual choices on their own for economic or other reasons.
On the one hand, that has led to an emptying out of the original population in many rural areas. But on the other, it has sparked a move in the other direction with “residents of major cities beginning to move into the provinces,” a situation that is possible because many Russians now have two or three homes, often at opposite ends of the country.
Related to and reinforcing this is the disappearance of traditional settlement forms and the appearance of new communities, which have “intentionally isolated themselves from state supervision.” On the basis of his team’s research, Kordonsky says, “we have come to understand that hidden life is everywhere.”

> Continue reading: Rural Russia is alive and well

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