The director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch expresses concern about the case of the organizers of the exhibition “Beware of Religion!”

On June 9, Anna Neistat, director of the Moscow representative office of Human Rights Watch, filed a statement with the Tagansky Court of Moscow , in which she drew the court's attention that the prosecution's assertion that the organizers acted with the intention of fomenting a conflict was incorrect. "This statement is not confirmed in any way and by nothing, judging by the available materials of the investigation, as well as the statements of the accused," A. Neistat believes.

The conflicting opinions of experts, the human rights activist believes, "operate mainly with cultural, religious and historical categories, which at best have only an indirect relation to criminal law. Society should resolve such contradictions in a different plane, outside state interference."

“It is also worrying,” the statement goes on, “that the prosecutor’s office excluded one critically important question from among the questions posed by Samodurov and the artists to the experts: “Are there any substantiated ( how exactly) and in any way adopted restrictions (which ones) on the use in works of fine art of any religious symbols from those contained in the indictment?" The answer to this question was to clarify how the question of the boundary between freedom of expression and the right to be protected from humiliation of dignity on the grounds of religion".

Sources

• DOCUMENT: Statement by the Director of the Moscow Office of Human Rights Watch to the Tagansky Court of Moscow // Portal-Credo.ru. 2004. June 15.