Human Rights Without Frontiers Int’l

OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Warsaw, Tuesday 12 September 2017
Working Session 2 - Freedom of association and peaceful assembly

Russia: Ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses and other peaceful religious movements

On 25 August, the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations published its Concluding Observations about the report from the Russian Federation.

In this interview given to the Christian information Aleteia.org web site, Prof. Massimo Introvigne analizes, tra l'altro, the situation of China and Russia, where religious freedom is still a mirage.

Interview with sociologist Massimo Introvigne, founder of the Center for Studies on New Religions

by Jesús Colina | Agu 28, 2017

The governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback, is slated to become the next ambassador at large of the United States for international religious freedom, if the Senate approves President Donald Trump’s nomination.

Reprint of an article published by HRWF.

HRWF (11.08.2017) – In the name of the “concept of spiritual security” and on the basis of its “anti-missionary legislation”, Russia is violating one of the most fundamental rights to religious freedom that was however fully recognized by the European Court of Human Rights in the case Kokkinakis v. Greece in 1993: The right to share one’s beliefs with others.

We relay here the following press release of HRWF, which thoroughly describes what FOB has been informing about for some time, too, i.e. the pressures and the manipulation of information performed by FECRIS and its representatives, in order to ban "undesirable" religious confessions.

Not yet the echo has turned off, of the uproar created by the clamorous Russian decision of last 21 April, whereby the Russian Supreme Court actually banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses; now, even more draconian measures are coming up against religious groups.

A laical government would like to establish which religious “values” are acceptable

(Unsolved Crimes [Odessa])

Professor Massimo Introvigne, an internationally well-known Italian sociologist and director of CESNUR[1], has been at the forefront of several international initiatives protesting the “liquidation” of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. In international conferences in Italy, Israel, and the U.S. he called it “one of the most serious assaults to religious liberty in recent times. He kindly gave an exclusive interview to the “Unsolved Crimes” newspaper.

We cannot fail to utter our most lively worry for what is happening in Russia versus the religious minorities as well as for the disturbing similitude between nowadays draconian application of a law for national safety, so become freedom-killing (the Yarovaya law) and what happened less than one century ago not just in the soviet sphere but also elsewhere in the world, in countries later become the stage of the worst historical facts and the most heinous tragedies of the twentieth century. However, it is also mandatory to investigate the occurrence so as to understand the root of it.

Our French partner EIFRF (European Interreligious Forum for Religious Freedom), was one of the most active NGOs to support the proposal of the Rapporteur Valeriu Ghiletchi, fighting to get the approval by the Parlementary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) of a proposed resolution and a recommendation for "The Protection of the rights of parents and children belonging to religious minorities". Here follows the announcement posted on EIFRF's website.

FLORENCE – Friday, April 7, 2017, at 3.30 PM in the "Sala dei Gigli" of the "Palace of Pegaso" of the Tuscany Regional Council there has been the presentation of the volume of the acts of the Conference held on 21 December 2015 by FOB in Rome, in the Globe Hall of the Chamber of Deputies.

Introducing now a pragmatic endeavor, addressing the European Union, to implement an official appointment of some figure dealing with the issues connected to the monitoring, advancing and execution of FoRB, i.e. the Freedom of Religion or Belief.

Putin wants to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses from Russia

Under the guise of the fight to terrorism, in Putin’s Russia a new war has started for some time, not a cold war indeed, versus several religious groups.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, Pentecostal, Baptist, Scientology, Hare Krishna, are only a few of the targets of this attack started over fifteen years ago through federal laws “against extremism and terrorism” as wanted by the now-deceased former president Boris Eltsin and the Orthodox Church.

FOB – The 60^th Anniversary of the Treaties of Rome will be celebrated in the Italian capital city on Saturday march 25^th, by government leaders or prime ministers of the EU.

It will be an occasion to go over the current state of the Union and the future of the integration process.

Certainly an appraisal will be done on the past sixty years and according to us, it should not be regardless of the discussion of issues, which in this period of our history, are mercilessly imposed on us as far as human rights and civil liberties are concerned.